


Cold like fire, Warm like ice

by A_Blobfish



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Daddy issues all around, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loki & Tony Stark Friendship, Loki Needs a Hug, M/M, Magic, Mental Health Issues, Morally Grey Characters, Nightmares, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Original Character(s), Pre-Avengers (2012), Protective Loki (Marvel), Protective Tony Stark, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Visions in dreams, but don't worry they will be well rounded and stuff, but then continues through the other movies, i dont know shit about the marvel comics so this is pretty much just based on the movies, slight canon rewrite in some places, sorry i'm a heathen, the balance between life and death, there is quite a bit of preamble (Loki and Tony dont meet each-other immediately)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:55:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26199658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Blobfish/pseuds/A_Blobfish
Summary: Tony Stark was called the merchant of death once, and death seems to follow him still, only now it might be in the more literal sense.A lady, dressed in black, has started to appear before him in his dreams, showing him strange visions; a man falling through darkness with a green cape billowing around him and a girl stuck in a cave of ice.“Find them, they will preserve the balance”But when Loki invades earth it seems as if ‘they’ have found him instead.
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Comments: 44
Kudos: 175
Collections: Best Fics Ever





	1. The End Is The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone and welcome to my fanfic!
> 
> Before we get started I'd like to introduce myself and what I have got planned for this story if you aren't interested in any of that feel free to just scroll down and start reading :)
> 
> I have not written fanfic before however, I have written in general before (obviously) I just usually stick to writing my own stories. I really enjoy writing so I'm glad that I am able to commit to a project like this and hopefully, you, readers will enjoy it too. 
> 
> I can't promise that this will be a creative masterpiece (it will most likely be far from it) but I can promise to try my best to make this as good as I can! I have a plan for where I want this story to go and I can't wait to share my ideas with anyone who is kind enough to come with me on this journey. 
> 
> I plan to update once a week, later chapters will be longer, this first part is more of a prologue, a teaser if you will...
> 
> Anyway, enough with my ramblings, I hope you stick around!
> 
> Regards,  
> A Blobfish

—Loki—

Loki was falling.

Not like that was something that hadn’t happened before, this time, however, he knew it was more final.

Oh, he’d had his share of miraculous escapes, miraculous from other people’s point of view that is, for him it was something closer to meticulously planned.

He could escape this too if he wanted, he could still feel the branches of Yggdrasil with his magic, twisting and turning through the fabric of time and space, all he would have to do is reach out and grab onto a bough. However, he did not wish to save himself, not this time. 

He remembered Odin's disgusted and disapproving expression along with the fear in Thor’s eyes. All he had ever wanted was to be acknowledged as Thor’s equal, he hated being the second prince, the weakling, the untrustworthy, ugly, one. Then to find out that he had never even had a chance at being someone Odin was proud of, that he was no better than the many spoils of war that Asgard hoarded. 

A last-ditch effort to prove that he wasn’t a monster, that he would never be loyal to the Jotuns, that he wasn’t and never would be a frost giant.

It had all gone so wrong so fast, if only he had seen the signs sooner, if only he had been left in that cave to die, if if if. 

He felt the need to make Odin proud of him shrivel up and die, he replaced it with hatred. He took his love for his so-called brother and crushed it. Finally, he took his memories of Frigga's kind, nurturing words and seemingly unconditional love, locked them up and threw away the key.

Not that any of it really mattered anymore, he was going to die.

Loki was   
going to  
end

But as the twinkling lights of Asgard started to disappear he felt a pull somewhere in his mind, it was as if some part of him had awoken. Someone somewhere was connected to him and crying out for help, guidance, knowledge. 

Loki wasn’t sure what was happening, or who it was he could hear in his mind, but he did not especially care to know how or why. 

But maybe.

Maybe he could do one good thing in his long and pitiful life.

Maybe he could help one person. 

He summoned the last of his strength and let his magic seep out from his fingertips. He sent with it the knowledge he had gathered, of spell-craft; transformation, illusions, Allspeak and travelling via Yggdrasil. Of the nine realms; rulers, hierarchies and power. And of him; his past, his fall and how deeply regretful he was of all his actions. It was not too much, it wouldn’t overwhelm whoever it was that received it, if they truly were connected to him in some way, they would be able to handle it. 

Loki watched his magical flare dance away, dark green sparks and waves briefly lighting up the nothingness that surrounded him. 

Then it was gone.

He closed his eyes and waited for lady death to take him.

Only she chose not to. Someone else caught him in her stead. Someone who would prove what Loki already knew.

That there are fates worse than death.


	2. Whats the difference between a vision and a nightmare?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh damn, another chapter huh? 
> 
> I'm honestly so happy that I'm not just screaming into the void with this story and that there are actually a handful of people that are kinda intrigued. 
> 
> Anyways, I just thought that since the prologue thingy was really short I would upload a new chapter as quickly as possible. 
> 
> There's a bit of filler-y stuff in here but also some very important parts. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> p.s writing dialogue between three people is difficult, sorry if it sucks :(

—Tony—

_Water, so much water. Surrounding him crushing him._

_He was being pushed, shoved, ripped apart by the dark liquid that enveloped him. He had lost all sense of direction, ‘up’ and ‘down’ were concepts that no longer existed._

_Then a light, a light was coming from somewhere in the distance, desperately Tony started to swim towards it, pulling himself through the ice-cold currents and foam that seemed to form cruel smiles in the darkness, taunting his attempt at survival._

_After an eternity he was closer to the light, so close that he could probably reach it out for it, so he did. He stretched his arms out towards it and felt them breach the surface of the water._

_Almost immediately he could feel himself being sucked back down into the swirling vortex._

_His arms, still above water, started to flail as they were being rapidly submerged once more, but then he felt something, a hard surface._

_With the last of his strength, he laid his hands flat and pulled himself up._

_He opened his eyes to bright artificial light and the smell of death, scrambling to his feet he realised where he was and stifled a scream of horror. He was back with the ten rings._

_Back in the cave._

_And in the corner lay a body slumped over. Yinsen._

_Nonononono_

_He had failed, Yinsen was dead. He had failed, Yinsen was dead. HehadfailedYinsenwasdead. Failed. Failed. failure._

_Looking down he realised there was a puddle near his feet, impossibly small considering he had pulled himself out of it only moments before. Images flickered on its surface, a man with mid-length black hair falling through darkness, green cape billowing around him and a blue woman, young, almost still a child, curled up in a cave of ice. Their faces hidden from view._

_Then a third person, horrible and beautiful both, was standing in front of him, her face constantly morphing into something new, first, she was young, then old, then she was dead, a corpse with rotting greenish-blue flesh barely hanging onto her bones._

_When she spoke her voice echoed around the cave._

_“Find them” ___

__Tony woke with a start, shivering with a cold sweat and disoriented. He scrambled up into a sitting position, pressing his back up against the wall._ _

__A disembodied voice started to speak_ _

__“Are you quite alright sir? You have awoken at an unusual time, 5:39 am, and seem to have had a nightmare”_ _

__“J-Jarvis?” Tony managed to choke out_ _

__“Yes sir, that is my name, I am going to switch on the lights now, do not be alarmed”_ _

__The lights flickered on and Tony flinched at the sudden brightness, he scanned his surroundings as soon as his eyes could focus again._ _

__He was… in his bedroom, in Stark tower. Not in a cave, not in Afghanistan, he was safe._ _

__“It really was just a nightmare” he muttered under his breath_ _

__He almost jumped out of his skin when he felt something move under the duvet next to him, he looked downwards and found himself staring into a pair of wide chestnut coloured eyes. He glanced briefly around the room again and registered that clothes scattered around the room didn’t belong solely to him. Tony’s eyes darted back to the woman as she propped herself up slightly, pulling her hand through her sandy blonde hair._ _

__Since he and Pepper had called it quits, his evenings consisted of either working himself to exhaustion on some new project or ending up in bed with a meaningless person he had met at one of the galas he had inexplicably been invited to._ _

__This had clearly been one of the “Tony Stark is a dog who needed to satisfy his sex drive” kind of nights_ _

__He gave a bitter sigh, “listen, I think it would be best if you leave now, go down to the reception and I’m sure you’ll find someone to drive you home, or whatever. Anyway, thank you, um..” He scrambled for a name, “...Samantha?”_ _

__“My name is Lilith” the woman replied with an unimpressed tone, she then stifled a yawn._ _

__“Right. Yes. Just kidding. I knew that” He chuckled weakly, “thank you for the evening Lilith”_ _

__Lilith then proceeded to sluggishly gather her things and shuffle out of his room. When she had left Tony started banging his head lightly against the wall in annoyance. Why was he like this? Since when had he started to feel guilty about sleeping with strangers? Why was he still having nightmares?_ _

__“Are you quite alright sir?”_ _

__“Hmm, oh, yes I’m alright, I might have drunk a little too much last night Jarvis”_ _

__“You don’t say, sir”_ _

__Tony groaned, “alright alright, enough with the sass, I am very much aware of how shitty my life is right now. You’re not helping.”_ _

__Silence._ _

__“Sorry Jarvis that was uncalled for”_ _

__“Oh, I was not offended sir, believe it or not, I have gotten quite used to your moods when you get out of bed before midday. I was merely contemplating possible ways to stop you from thinking about how ‘shitty’ your life is right now”_ _

__At that Tony gasped dramatically, “wow watch the language, Jarvis”_ _

__“Sorry sir” Jarvis replied dryly and if his AI could chuckle, Tony was sure he would have._ _

__“Hmm, we did remember to get that woman to sign an NDA right Jarvis? We wouldn’t want S.H.E.I.L.D thinking I’m more irresponsible than they already do”, or give Pepper more trouble, a voice at the back of his head whispered._ _

__“Naturally sir” Jarvis replied_ _

__Ah Pepper Potts, perfect Pep, he really wished they had lasted longer than a couple of months. He misses waking up and seeing the same face each morning, being close to another human in a way that meaningless sex couldn’t provide. Alas, she was too responsible, he was too explosive, they could have stayed together but they wouldn’t have been happy. Pepper deserved better than him._ _

__She was still the most important person in his life; he was glad that she was still his CEO. Rhodes was high up on his list of 'favourite people' too, obviously not in the same way as Pepper though._ _

__“I suppose I’d better get up Jarvis”_ _

__“Early bird gets the worm sir”_ _

__With a groan, Tony half-rolled out of bed and dragged himself into his kitchen to make a cup of coffee._ _

__—_ _

__Tony Stark was sitting on his sofa with a stark pad in one hand, the third cup of coffee in the other, taking in the view of the New York City skyline as the sun slowly rose._ _

__He used to relish moments alone, feeling safer in his own head. Not that he didn’t enjoy the parties too, but there had always been something special about just being in his own head, a place that now felt broken, dangerous, scary._ _

__He had built the Iron Man suit and survived the ten rings, he had discovered a new element and survived the palladium poisoning. For what? To be told he wasn’t good enough to be an avenger and to ultimately end up alone._ _

__“Fuck.”_ _

__He hadn’t even realised his hand had been shaking, now he had spilt coffee all over himself._ _

__“Dammit, Jarvis could you arrange for this to be washed and…” he trailed off_ _

__“Sir?”_ _

__“Right yes. Invite Rhodey and Pepper over for dinner tonight”_ _

__“Should I give them a reason for the invitation sir?”_ _

__“Just tell them that I’m missing my two favourite people”_ _

__“Right you are sir”_ _

__With that, Tony left his living room and went to change his coffee-stained clothes._ _

__—_ _

__When Colonel James Rupert Rhodes stepped out of the elevator, Tony couldn’t keep the smile off his face._ _

__“Platypus you beautiful bastard, get over here” he exclaimed, opening his arms for a hug that Rhodey gladly gave._ _

__“Ah, love, it almost makes me want to cry" came Pepper’s sarcastic voice from behind them, "I never did have a chance did I?"_ _

__“Pep! Get in here!” Tony waved her over with one arm and soon all three were stuck in an embrace._ _

__Tony stepped back and clapped his hands together, “well then who wants some pizza” he said as he herded them towards his dining table._ _

__“So talk to me,” Tony said as they sat down, “it feels like forever since we last saw each other!”_ _

__“It's been a week Tony,” Pepper said with a chuckle_ _

__“Same difference”_ _

__“Tones are you alright?”_ _

__“Yes, yes, I'm fine” he waved them off and grabbed a slice of pizza_ _

__There were a few seconds of heavy silence before Pepper chimed in again, “well the company is doing well anyway, and there haven’t been any big scandals these last two weeks”, she turned to him with a grin, “so thank you, Tony”_ _

__Tony just raised his arms in a defensive gesture and leant back with a smirk. Rhodey tilted his head, “wow is that a new record? A couple of months ago there was a new TMZ article every day!”_ _

__At that Tony froze, his hand instinctively reaching for his arc-reactor. He could feel its gentle pulse and cool metal through his thin shirt. Looking down, the cool blue colour calmed him, there was no more darkness, no more poison being pushed through his veins. When he glanced up again he saw Pep glaring and Rhodey who was now wincing, “sorry bad joke, but you’ve got to admit, you went a little crazy for a while there…”_ _

__“Hey I thought I was dying, I’d say I had plenty of reason to be ‘a little crazy’, I didn’t see you assisting much _Iron Patriot _” Tony snapped___ _

____“Hey that isn’t fair, I was just trying to help…”_ _ _ _

____“Yeah, selling yourself out to my rival, great help, thanks”_ _ _ _

____“Now listen here…”_ _ _ _

____Suddenly Pepper’s firm voice chimed in, “Stop, this isn’t helping anyone, I thought we were over this you two. Tony, there is no denying that you acted completely irresponsibly, I mean getting drunk in your suit... ”_ _ _ _

____At that Tony scoffed, but Pepper raised her hand and he let her continue._ _ _ _

____“That being said, we all understand how you feel about your technology being in the hands of the military, but Rhodey really didn’t have much of a choice, he certainly didn’t sell himself out. He shouldn’t have joked about it, it was a difficult time for all of us, yes?”_ _ _ _

____Both men gave grunts of agreement._ _ _ _

____“Now kiss and make up, you two.”_ _ _ _

____“Sorry Rhodey, I've just been… I’m just a little on edge right now, having weird dreams. No hard feelings right?”_ _ _ _

____“None at all”_ _ _ _

____—_ _ _ _

____The rest of the night passed easily, the awkwardness forgotten as they fell into their well-practised mannerisms. Tony’s dry wit, Rhodey’s poorly masked amusement and Pepper’s loving exasperation._ _ _ _

____After they left he went down a level to his workshop, his fingers tingling with excitement and inspiration. He hoped that getting his hands dirty would keep his mind off things like it usually did. Nonetheless, as he worked away on the newest version of his suit, images from his dream would not stop flashing before his eyes._ _ _ _

____A man with a green cape falling through space, a young woman curled up in a cave not showing her face._ _ _ _

____And an eerie echo bounced around in his skull_ _ _ _

_______Find them_  
Find them  
Find them 


	3. It's not the fall that kills you, its the landing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks, another chapter! I feel much better about this one than the one before it so I'm hoping that you dear readers enjoy it too. Toodles

—Loki—

Someone was holding him upright, massive hands gripping his arms in a bone-crushing way. 

He must be dead, this couldn’t be real, maybe this was Helheim, maybe this was his penance.

He kept his eyes firmly shut.

“Thank you for this tool my Lady” a deep rumbling voice said, the voice of whoever was holding him.

“Do not underestimate him” another said, female this time

Then it felt as if all the air was sucked out of the room, for minutes everything was deathly silent and Loki’s lungs started to scream for air. As suddenly as the air had disappeared, it returned, he took a couple of shuddering breaths and finally opened his eyes. The woman had clearly left but there was another figure, standing in the corner of the room.

The man? Person? Thing? Holding onto him addressed the hooded figure, “take him, and break him” 

“If I may Lord, he seems to be weak already...”

“This one is well known for his deception, we will take no chances”, Loki felt himself be thrust forward and he landed on his hands and knees. 

Slowly he raised his head. 

From beneath a dark hood, Loki saw a cruel smile 

— 

Loki cursed himself for using so much magic as he fell, he was so utterly exhausted now that he wouldn’t be able to cast even a simple illusion, let alone escape from this cursed place. He should have known that it would not be that easy, death was a blessing that would not be granted to the likes of him. Loki was a fool. 

Despite being a fool it did not take him long to realise he had fallen into the clutches of Thanos. He had heard many tales of the Titan in his youth, battles from long ago. His mighty gauntlet was one of the many war prizes in Asgard’s dungeons. 

And now Loki was here, wherever ‘here’ was, probably a spaceship, but he was not in the nine realms anymore. If he were he would still be able to feel Yggdrasil no matter how depleted his magic was. 

He was truly alone and at the mercy of the Other, Thanos’ right-hand man. 

He knew that he wouldn’t be left alone for long, they would not let him recuperate, or let his magic come back. Time was precious and sparse and he needed to utilise every second. Loki stood up, wincing slightly from the effort, and walked slowly around the perimeter of his cell. It was small, a perfect cube, containing only the bench he had been sitting on and a small hole in the corner of the room. He scowled at the hole, _that_ was not suitable for a prince at all. 

He stopped his train of thought immediately because he wasn’t a prince anymore was he? Not in Asgard or in Jotunheim.

The walls of his cell were a dull grey, lights lined the edges of the cube in strips. It was too much, too bright and suddenly his head was pounding so hard he thought it would break out of his skull. 

He wondered what his captors would do with him, torture him no doubt for information about Asgard, or for his seidr. He was not particularly loyal to Asgard at the moment but his hatred for his captors overshadowed the sting of Asgard's betrayal. Then they would probably kill him, what other use would they have for him? He would never work for them or give them information, he would rather die than break, he had already proved that with the Bifrost. 

They would kill him, it might take some time, but it was the inevitable end to his story. The thought filled him with dread. 

He wanted to end, yes, but not here, not like this. 

He felt around the edges of the door to his cell; there was no noticeable handle or button, a remote mechanism must control it. Pressing his ear up against it, he could hear three sets of footsteps outside and a low mumble. They were talking about something, but the walls were too thick to make out what. Suddenly he felt the door shift, and in one quick fluid motion, he was back on his bench, face expressionless. 

The door to his cell opened almost soundlessly and heavyset footsteps entered, slowly, purposefully. The Other was here. 

“Loki of Asgard, I trust you are enjoying your stay with us” the Other drawled

“What do you want from me?” Loki replied as calmly as he could muster. 

“It is more what you can gain from us… you could have an army, a kingdom, you could be a king just like you’ve always wanted…”

“You know nothing about me”

The Other chuckled, “oh we know everything about you, Jotun”

Loki hissed at him, “you have no idea what you are talking about” 

“Don’t I?” The Other made a complicated gesture with his hands and Loki felt something snap inside of him. 

In horror he looked down at his hands and saw his Æsir form melting away, giving way to the cool blue skin underneath. Complicated grey swirls appeared too as the trail of blue moved upwards to his arms. 

The Other, seeing his shocked expression, gave a low chuckle.

“I can do much worse than that dear Loki, don’t you worry” 

“What. Do. You. Want. With. Me.” Loki replied, calm demeanour dead and buried. 

“Well you see, there is something on Midgard, something my master needs. It is known as the tesseract”

At that Loki gave a small involuntary gasp, the Other nodded slowly

“You are familiar with it, yes? One of the infinity stones. We need your particular magical.. expertise… to retrieve the stone, along with a sacrifice large enough to please my master’s mistress. Then, when you are done, you may keep the planet, to rule or to destroy. Your choice.” 

“I wish no quarrel with Midgard” Loki spat at him 

“Oh but you see you do” the other replied, “or when I’m done with you, you will”

Fury and hatred welled up in Loki, he wished to crush the Other under his boot, tear him apart in the most painful way possible. He wanted to plunge his hand into his chest and grip at his heart until he felt the shuddering beats come to a stop. 

“Oh that’s better, but your anger is so misdirected dear Loki… it really isn’t me you hate, it’s them, it is their fault after all” 

“How…. could this… possibly… be their fault” 

“Well you see, the more you struggle to protect them, them, the more pain you will feel” 

Loki scoffed slightly, he was hardly protecting the Midgardians, he couldn’t care less about them, but he would rather slit his own throat than give his captors his aid. 

The Other strode over to Loki then and placed his fingers lightly on the god’s forehead. 

For a blessed moment, there was silence 

And then the room was filled with the sound of Loki’s screams.

—???—

Dark. Cold. 

Time stood still.

An explosion. Something that made the whole planet shake. 

Something that nearly tore it apart. 

It was enough to shake someone from a slumber, it was enough to break a spell. 

Then after almost two millennia, she awoke.

Confused, helpless, cold, she watched a trail of green sparks approach. 

She touched them cautiously with her fingertips and suddenly magic hot and cold like fire and ice was enveloping her, filling her with knowledge. 

One word escaped her chapped lips

“Loke”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to reveal a bit more about who exactly the girl is but then I decided nahhh. Also no, that is not a spelling error in the last line, I was just using the old/Scandinavian spelling of Loki. However if I do have any spelling or grammatical mistakes feel free to let me know, I won't get offended I promise.


	4. So I heard you found an alien?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that my notes at the beginnings of these aren't too obnoxious... enjoy the chapter!

—Tony—

_Tony was drowning again. The water was swirling, wrapping him in an icy embrace. He could feel his clothing weighing him down, the buttons on his shirt pressing uncomfortably into his skin due to the pressure of the vortex. He briefly considered how utterly ruined his clothes were getting before remembering that this was just another dream. It must be._

_Right?_

_Since when were dreams so vivid anyway?_

_Tony felt his lungs start to burn and realised he should have started swimming immediately._

_He flailed desperately, but it was no use, he could barely move his limbs, the water’s current had picked up and had trapped him there, suspended, a ragdoll._

_There was an explosion, the sound was muffled through the water, almost instantaneously he felt the shock waves. Another explosion, closer this time, as the shock waves reached him he felt his body spasm from the heat and pure power. He was propelled forward, out of the water and landed face down and gasping on a warm flat surface._

_Tony propped himself up on his hands and knees, a position that in certain other circumstances would’ve been a lot more fun, and stared at the ground trying desperately trying not to be sick. Taking a couple of heaving breaths he cautiously turned his gaze upwards. The world was a haze of ash and fire, a building was crumbling around him, he raised himself up on unsteady feet. Looking up he could just see the inky black night sky. The building he was in was well and truly destroyed, but that did not mean he didn’t know exactly where he was. It was the remains of his arc reactor, it was that night all over again, the night he had gotten his revenge. He felt the ash gently land on his cheeks, the soft grey snowflakes a promise of creation and destruction._

_Taking a couple of slow steps forward he saw a silhouette of a body on the ground through the haze. He upped his pace, legs, a torso, bits of metal piercing through flesh, a half-melted face frozen in an expression of shock, pain and fear._

_This time the sight of a corpse didn't fill him with terror but grim satisfaction. Maybe it made him a bad person, but the fact that Obidiah Stane had died that night made him happy, made him feel safe. He knew he was not supposed to be judge, jury and executioner, but sometimes a voice in the back of his head whispered to him, “why not”. He is clever and powerful, calling himself a genius was not showing off but simply fact._

_Tony gave a bitter sigh and kicked at the metal coffin before him, he should not be having thoughts like these, this is exactly why people tended not to want him, or like him, or trust him._

_Someone behind him cleared their throat, and Tony whipped around, for a terrifying moment he thought that Obidiah was somehow alive again. Then he saw her, the woman draped in black, and calmed down._

_nope nope, he should definitely still be terrified._

_“Who are you?” were the only words he could croak out of his chapped lips, his throat felt impossibly dry, it seemed incomprehensible that he had been drowning just moments before._

_The woman considered him for a moment, she wasn’t shifting between forms today, it made her just a little more bearable to look at. It was still like looking into the sun, no that was wrong, she was the absence of light and life. Looking at her was like looking at a black hole, an impossibility, her eyes held a strange spark, the only light part of her. It was as if she was the literal impersonation of death... and just like that, he had answered his own question._

_The woman nodded slightly, “You are correct Anthony Stark, I am death”_

_Tony gave an involuntary shudder, “Wha-” yet again his voice came out as a dull croak, he cleared his throat, “what do you want with me?”_

_“There is something, a unique task, that only you can fulfil”, lady death waved her arm in front of her body in an arc and a wall of fire appeared between them, “someone is threatening the balance of the universe” an image of a golden metal glove, gauntlet would be a better word to describe it, flickered in the flames. “A delicate tapestry of power, fate and magic holds everything together at its seams. The actions of one threaten to destroy that. One person has the power to stop him” an image formed then of the man from his earlier dream, his face contorted in agony. Tony briefly wondered if he was being tortured? “Two people will be able to shape him and aid him, her..” the fiery image now showed the blue girl from the ice cave, she was sitting up now and Tony could see frightened red eyes staring back at him. “...and you” the wall of flames became a mirror then, showing his own face smeared in grime and ash. Slowly the flames between them flickered out and death was standing before him once again._

_The silence stretched between them, heavy and uncomfortable before an incredulous Tony spoke up._

_“Excuse me…? I mean, you can see how ridiculous this is, can’t you? I have never met whoever that man is before and don’t even get me started on the weird blue alien girl! What the hell am I supposed to do to stop the end of the universe, I-“_

_The woman interrupted him then, “It is true, you are hardly very remarkable, fate has chosen you, not me.” She held out her palm and wisps of shadow formed crude silhouettes of the people from before, “With the right actions you could find yourself in a position of influence over one of them, and through one, you will get to the other. I cannot tell you more, nor do I want to, just remember this: The future is not certain, what comes into being is up to you now”_

_“But, magic? I mean come on…”_

_“What else would you call this, Anthony Stark” she purred and then snapped her fingers._

_The world went dark._

—

Tony woke up. 

A dream, it had just been a dream. He took a couple of shuddering breaths to calm his pounding heart and then froze. He could hear Jarvis’ concerned voice but couldn’t register what he was saying. All noises were drowned out, they didn’t matter, because in the middle of his naked chest, right under his arc reactor was a small black symbol (ᛦ). It looked like a peace sign without the ring or an upside-down pitchfork. 

“Jarvis?”

“Yes sir?”

“Could you tell me what exactly the…. thing on my chest is” 

“It seems to be a tattoo sir” 

“Yes Jarvis, but a tattoo of what?” 

“It appears to be the Norse rune YR, the inverse of the rune Algiz. It has garnered many different meanings over the years but originally it represented the roots of the mythological tree Yggdrasil. Also death, war and the end of times” 

At that Tony swallowed dryly, “great, that’s great. There’s no chance I got blackout drunk last night and did this to myself is there?” 

“No sir, do you wish to review the security footage?”

Tony gave a curt nod and the video started playing. 

— 

Nothing, there was nothing. He fell asleep at around 3 am, slept fitfully the rest of the night and then right before he woke up the mark appeared. He shook his hands through his hair in frustration, none of it made any sense at all. 

He had tried washing it off too, scrubbing so hard that the surrounding skin became red and irritated. 

Which meant… what did it mean exactly? That his dreams were real, that magic was… and what about the two people, things, creatures he kept being shown

Aliens, at least one of them anyway. 

“Aliens aliens aliens” he muttered to himself, “that's it!”

“What was that, Sir?” Jarvis said.

“Aliens! It must be alien technology, the dreams, the mark… what do we know about extraterrestrial activity, Jarvis?”

“According to intel, an extraterrestrial and a metal object landed in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico last year causing strong atmospheric disturbances. SHIELD was first on the scene.”

At that Tony scowled, “why didn’t you tell me about this back then” 

“I did sir, I believe you said you couldn’t be bothered dealing with ‘Fury and his little club’”

“Never listen to me Jarvis, it’s always a bad idea.” He pouted, “arrange a meeting with Fury, I need to know more about his little alien”

—

“Wow so not exactly a little alien, is he?” Tony muttered as he watched SHIELD's security feed of a blond, long-haired, behemoth man, Fury snorted lightly from his chair. Tony gave the man a considering glance, it hadn’t exactly been easy for Tony to see this footage. The conversation had started with him barging into the office of an unimpressed looking Nick Fury and saying, “So I heard you found an alien?” Consisted of a shouting match (Fury was a paranoid bastard) and ended with Tony threatening to pull himself and his funds out of the Avengers initiative. You know, just a calm collected discussion between two adults.

“So tell me Stark, why are you suddenly so interested in all this?” Fury said with a flick of his wrist. 

Tony considered him for a moment and then answered, “just curious, I remembered Jarvis telling me about this months ago, and proof of extraterrestrial life seems like a pretty big deal. 

Fury looked unconvinced, “we’ve had proof of that for a while now” 

Tony gaped slightly at that and then cleared his throat, “right... So what can you tell me about he-man over here?” 

“The name he gave us was Thor Odinson of Asgard, tell me Stark, how familiar are you with the Norse gods?” 

Tony could not believe this, there were too many coincidences at this point, incredulously he said, “You don’t mean to tell me that, that Thor and this Thor are…” 

Fury leant back in his chair, seemingly amused by whatever he was reading on Tony’s face, it annoyed Tony to no end that he could apparently be read so easily, fucking spies, “One and the same, yes” 

Tony lightly touched his hand up to the space right below his arc reactor, the space that was now occupied by that ominous dark mark. Trying (and most likely failing) at keeping his face and voice void of emotion he said, “what else can you tell me about him?” 

“We do not think he is immortal, however, he does have a much longer lifespan than us since he inspired Norse mythology. He is much stronger than us, physically, and has a weapon, a silver hammer, that he can use to wield lightning. During his stay on earth, he somehow lost his ability to wield said weapon, some kind of test of his worth. Once his power returned to him he left earth again”

Tony spluttered at that, "Wait wait wait, wield lightning? Surely you don't actually believe that. Despite everything you seem like a reasonable man Fury, don't tell me you believe in magic"

"Well it’s either magic or some advanced form of technology, take your pick" 

Tony sat in silence, trying to process it all, Fury just continued talking ignoring his lack of response.

“He posed no threat to earth this time, but these types of events are exactly why we need the avengers initiative. The threats to our world are growing constantly.” Fury checked his watch and then cooly turned his gaze back to Tony, “now if I have sated your curiosity Stark, I must be going”

Tony sighed and then got up, “see you later, danger mouse,” he said with a forced smirk and stalked out of the room, in the corner of his eye he saw Fury scowl and reach a hand up to his eye-patch. 

—

When Tony got home he immediately got Jarvis to find everything he could on Norse mythology. That’s what everything was leading back to anyway, a Nordic rune on his chest, a Norse god that for some reason landed in New Mexico, fucking magic… His dreams were no doubt connected to all this too. 

He downed a scotch and got to work, reading tales of bravery, strength and terrible monsters. 

While scouring through the books and academic papers that Jarvis had found for him he started to wonder if the dark-haired man could be Loki from the myths. It would make things slightly easier for Tony, in that case, it would mean that Thor and the mystery man were connected and that all of the research he was doing actually had a point. But then again it just didn’t make sense. The Loki from the tales was mean and treacherous, his children said to bring the end of times. Why would he save the universe?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anyone actually know what "Danger Mouse" is or did that reference fall flat?


	5. Control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, I know that these chapters are quite short and I apologise, I don't know if I should write longer chapters less regularly or keep doing it like this. Secondly, there is a scene in this that was a bit uncomfortable to write and some people will probably find it a bit uncomfortable to read so I'm just going to go ahead and put a TW for attempted rape and sexual harassment of a minor. I'll put a recap of it in the notes at the bottom if you don't want to read that section just skip to the bottom when you get to the "---???---" part.

—Loki—

The only thing that existed was pain.

Happiness had died long before he jumped off the bifrost, fear had perished soon after, all that remained was agony.

He had screamed just once, the first time, out of shock more than anything else. And despite every fibre of his being crying out, he wouldn’t give his captors the satisfaction again. 

He wondered how long it had been, it felt like years, but he suspected that time might move differently here, or maybe he was just losing his mind.

He was back in his cell now which only meant that instead of sharp bursts of pain it was a dull throb that never went away. He could feel his bones and skin knit together again, everything simply just hurt. With a grimace, Loki popped a bone back in place and felt the healing process begin. It felt like fire was dancing through his flesh, burning him from the inside out. 

If the torture was just physical he supposed that it would be bearable enough, but the psychological torment hurt more than feeling his bones break one by one ever could. They made him see things that weren’t there, they reached into his mind and twisted reality so he could almost not tell what was real and what was fake. 

They made him see Odin, then Thor, then Frigga; everyone he had ever disappointed, everyone who had ever disappointed him. 

Loki was not sure how they were doing it, advanced magic perhaps, but if it were that simple he would be able to block it. No, it was something else, something much more powerful. An artefact then, but what? Loki scoured his memory but only one thing seemed to fit. But that wasn’t possible if they had _that_ there was no hope. 

A voice startled him from his thoughts, “ah, you figured it out, that took longer than expected” 

He raised his head up slowly and locked eyes with the Other, Loki had not noticed him arrive, but he was not going to let the Other see how unnerved he was. “The mind stone then,” Loki said dryly, every word was an effort and he doubted that he sounded as haughty as he wanted, but he wasn’t going to grovel and cry any time soon. 

“Yes, are you any more willing to aid us with our little problem… I always find that it is best to stay on the winning side, and with it in our possesion, I would say victory is inevitable, wouldn’t you?” 

Loki regarded his nails, “I’ll never help you” 

“Funny that you still think you have a choice in the matter” The Other stated

“I’ll never _willingly_ help you” 

“Maybe, but it would be easier for both of us if you did. Then again, it _is_ fun to beat you into submission... Oh, how the mighty Loki has fallen.” The Other chuckled. 

“you have the mind stone, go get whatever you need yourself, surely even _you_ could manage that.”

“There really is not much use in resisting, eventually we will be victorious.” 

Loki locked eyes with his captor and then flicked his hand nonchalantly sideways, “There is probably truth to your words, Thanos will probably win this war, gain power over the universe, end a trillion or so lives…” Loki smiled then, like a knife, wide, sharp, deadly, “but I promise you this, as long as I breathe, _you_ will never win” he leaned forward and whispered, “I will see to that personally.”

At that, the Other stormed over to Loki and grabbed him by the throat. Loki could feel the power there, it would barely take a twitch for his neck to be snapped. 

Loki just chuckled 

“Ah ah ah” he tutted, “your master wouldn’t like that would he, you need me alive. Run along now” 

With a growl the Other dropped him and stormed out, the door shutting instantly behind him. 

The smile stayed on Loki’s face even when the guards came for him, even when the mind stone was pressed to his forehead, even when it felt like his skull was going to split in two. When he could feel fire dancing on his sensitive cool skin and water in his lungs, it remained. Only when he collapsed from exhaustion in his cell did it finally slip off his face. 

Because Loki’s smile was his armour, and he had centuries of practise in using it. 

—

He could feel it happen, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. 

For each time the mind stone was used, Loki could feel parts of himself being chipped away. The wards he had always had, protecting his psyche, were being penetrated and cracked open from the inside. 

Not being in control had always been his biggest fear. 

Throughout his childhood, Loki had never been in control. He was second best to Thor and therefore always forced to do what his brother told him to.

And then get punished for his brother's mistakes. 

He learned quickly that he would never be respected, not truly, he wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t good enough. 

He poured himself into his magic, he had a gift for it after all, and it meant he could spend more time with his- Frigga. Odin disapproved of course, but then again he disapproved of everything Loki did.

He became what most people already thought he was, unreliable and mischievous. That was an image he could control.

Loki drank but never got drunk, had sex but never let himself fall asleep next to someone else. 

Never let any part of him be too genuine, stayed in solitude without feeling lonely. 

Then when he discovered his true heritage he lost control completely. 

And now he was losing control again, but this time it was worse, so so so much worse. 

Because this time it didn’t happen suddenly, it was a wound that had been left to fester, he was falling apart bit by bit. 

He could feel it happen, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. 

—???—

She had tried many times to follow Loki’s instructions, to find the branches of Yggdrasil, but it was a near-impossible task. She knew she needed to get out of the cave but figuring out how to do it was tiring work.

Her magic was like a puzzle, she had all the pieces but didn’t know how exactly to fit them together. She had gained a lifetime of knowledge in just a couple of seconds, but much to her frustration knowing and understanding were two completely different concepts.

She felt so young and old at the same time. She felt like she was a paradox like she shouldn’t exist. 

Suddenly there it was, an opening, small but there nonetheless. So she disappeared into the space between worlds, long blue limbs tiptoeing along the branches of the world tree.

However travelling between the worlds was overwhelming, sometimes there were millions of colours and then there were none at all. She did not know what path to take and where to go. 

It made her queasy, she realised she had started to shake and then….

She was falling.

—

She landed facedown in a puddle and quickly pulled herself up. She felt too bare, all the information and memories she had gotten from Loki showed that you were supposed to wear garments, sadly there had been none in the cave. 

She had been trying to get to Asgard, that is where Loki has been last, but instead, she had ended up here. 

She heard a whistle from behind her, she whipped around to see a pudgy man sauntering towards her. He had pasty pale skin and a ratty ginger beard. Surely he wasn’t an Asgardian the clothing didn’t match, definitely not from alfheim, a dwarf perhaps, but then again no. A Midgardian then. 

There was too much information spinning around in her head, she stumbled, was this Midgard? 

His raspy voice distracted her from her thoughts, “what brings you to the alley little miss?” 

“Can you help me? Where am I, is this Midgard?”

“Oh wow, you’re out of it huh, ya high or drunk?” He laughed but it didn’t seem very happy or kind, “must have been some party with that there body paint”

Despite the allspeak, she didn’t understand half of what the man was saying, she just wanted to leave. “I- I don’t know, can I just leave please?” 

“Don’t worry sweetie, I’m gonna take good care of you ok” the man's hand was suddenly on her waist, she didn’t like it. 

He yanked her closer and stroked a fat sweaty finger down her face. 

“Please stop touching me”, her own words sounded foreign to her.

“Aw no you should know better sweetie, you have such a beautiful body” he licked his lips, “simply can’t stop myself, your own fault really, you should be wearing more clothes round' these parts” 

The man, still holding her tight squeezed one of her bare breasts with a grubby paw. She shuddered in revulsion. “Please” she whispered, “stop” 

“You’re young aren’t-cha, I like that in a gal, everything is all pert and tight,” his greedy eyes roamed her body, and for a moment she found herself frozen in pure terror. 

She didn’t understand what the man wanted with her, but suddenly she felt her magic welling up inside her and remembered. 

She was strong.

She had power.

More than any Midgardian ever would.

She hadn’t woken up, just to be hurt and taken advantage of. 

She stopped holding herself back.

The man's eyes widened and he took a couple of steps back. His hands were completely frozen, “what the fuck” he spat, “fucking bitch, what did you do?”

She ignored him and closed her eyes, her whole being was buzzing with power, she held it in for a moment, relishing the feeling, and then she let go. 

It was beautiful really, tendrils of ice mixed with the dark violet colour of her magic. She smiled.

Afterwards, she removed clothes from the corpse in front of her and put them on her naked frame. They reeked of the man but they would have to do for now. She then closed her eyes and made her blue skin melt away into a pale peach colour. She hated it but she mustn’t stick out more than she already did. 

As she walked out of the darkness of the alleyway she shed a tear for all of the Midgardians who didn’t have power like her, who couldn’t protect themselves from animals like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recap:
> 
> Basically the girl in the ice cave is trying to figure out her powers, she wants to find Loki so she tries to go to Asgard but ends up in an ally on Midgard instead. A man tries to take advantage of her and she uses her powers to kill him (in self-defence) 
> 
> Also, rape and sexual harassment are completely and utterly wrong, it is NEVER the victim's fault. If you think otherwise please leave. 
> 
> \---
> 
> Just for your information, most of this story is going to be told from Loki and Tony's perspectives (as they are the main characters), however, some parts will come from the perspectives of other characters so I hope that doesn't put anyone off. ??? girl is an original character and here in the beginning (until she meets Loki and Tony) there will be a couple of parts from her perspective. I know some people don't really like OC's so again, I hope this doesn't put anyone off my story :)
> 
> BTW: The girl is supposed to look 17-18 by human standards


	6. A passenger in your own body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Disney + finally became available in the country I live in which means that I don't have to base this story on memories of movies I watched a couple of years ago and the Marvel wiki... I mean *cough* I totally wasn't doing that before *cough cough*. 
> 
> Anyway, this is the final chapter before Loki and Tony meet each other for the first time, so get excited for that lads!
> 
> Additionally, many thanks to the user "Ilikepickles" for reminding me that I should probably have an update schedule for this so from now on I'll post something every weekend. If I'm feeling extra creative I might post during the week as well, but if anyone wants to keep up with this story just check back on Saturday or Sunday and I'll have something up :)

\---Tony---

The lady behind the bar turned the music up slightly and started humming to herself. 

_“Just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark”_

Tony sat himself down by a table in the corner and surveyed the scene. It was a small dimly lit place with a couple of booths, an old jukebox behind the bar and a well-used pool-table in one corner. Two old men were drinking beers and playing cards, a dark-haired girl was sitting at the bar drawing in a notebook. 

The place wasn’t skeezy, more like charmingly run down and cosy. 

_“If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks  
Then I'll follow you into the dark”_

“Probably isn't the sort of place you would usually visit huh” a female voice snapped him back to reality, “I’m Jane Foster”

Tony stood up and took her hand, “Pleasure to meet you, thanks for agreeing to this.” 

“Pleasure’s all mine, I mean meeting the Tony Stark, well that doesn’t happen every day,” she said with a smile, “should I get you a drink” 

“Oh I can-“

“No, I insist” 

Tony smiled politely and sat down again, it would be a lie to say he didn’t feel slightly out of place, but from what he’d heard, Foster was a brilliant scientist so they should get along on that front. 

Jane talked to the lady at the bar for a bit before coming back to their table with a beer in one hand and in the other she held what looked like…

“A single malt scotch, how did you know?” Tony said with a smile. 

“Ah, well” she cleared her throat, “you are a celebrity in a way, so I did some reading about you when you called and asked to meet me” 

Tony just laughed a little at that and Jane blushed slightly in embarrassment, “no, really, it's fine, I'm used to it,” he said. 

Jane coughed, “anyway… what did you want to speak with me about” 

“Thor.”

“Oh, I suspected it would be something like that, I got a call from shield a couple of days ago reminding me that all information about Thor was classified”

“So why did you agree to meet me?”

“Because I’m still pissed at shield for stealing my stuff”

Tony barked out a laugh at that, “yes they tend to be annoying like that”

“So Thor, I met him the first time by actually, um, hitting him with my car. He had just appeared in the middle of a lightning storm and afterwards, he started shouting up at the sky. I was researching the einstein-Rosen bridge at the time. An einstein-Rosen bridge is a wormhole by the way.”

He gave her an unimpressed look

“Sorry, right, yes, you’re Tony Stark, you know what that is already” she continued, “I mean obviously at first I thought he was a nutter, we all did. But he was charming, he had a posh British accent and all these funny mannerisms. He kissed me on the hand once, like a prince would do in a movie, I mean who does that?!” she chuckled but had a fond smile on her face. “He was obsessed with the other thing that had landed on earth, a hammer, he even broke into shield to try and get to it,” she looked up sheepishly, “I kinda helped him… He beat up a fair number of their men but couldn’t pick up the hammer”

Tony nodded, “It was impressive, I’ve seen the footage”

“One night he told me all about Asgard, about how he had been banished here by his father, Odin, and stripped of all his powers. He also explained the world tree to me… Do you have a piece of paper?” 

He shook his head, “sorry” 

“Um ok” she got up abruptly, Tony was confused for a moment until he saw she had gone back over to the bar, “excuse me, do you have some paper” he heard her say to the woman behind the bar, the woman shook her head and then turned to the dark-haired girl sitting nearby, “sweetie,” she said, “could you give the nice lady a piece of paper from your notebook?”

“Why? It's my notebook.” the girl replied, not rudely, more as if she was genuinely confused. 

“Because we want to be polite don’t we? When people ask nicely it's good to humour them” the bar lady replied 

“Oh ok then,” the girl said and ripped out a piece and gave it to Jane.

It was odd, the girl looked almost eighteen and yet the lady was talking to her in the same way you would talk to a child. 

“Thank you very much,” said Jane, looking slightly perplexed at the strange exchange, “is she family…?”

“Something like that” the lady smiled, and Jane nodded before heading back to their table again.

“Right,” she said, “where was I? Oh yes, the nine realms”

“The nine what?” 

“Shh,” foster said, before clasping her hands to her mouth, “Sorry, that was rude… I get like this sometimes when I’m explaining things…” a blush was rising in the woman's cheeks. 

“No, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have interrupted, please carry on,” Tony said, trying his best to hide a smile.

“Um, yes, ok… Earth, what they call Midgard, is here” she drew a circle in the middle of the tree, “and then there are eight others, Álfheim, Niðavellir, Jötunheim, Vanaheim, Niflheim, Muspelheim, Hel and finally Asgard.” for each of the words she was saying she drew another circle on the tree “As I said, Thor was from Asgard, he has a brother, Loki, and their mother and father are Frigga and Odin, king and queen of Asgard. Long ago, Asgard was at war with Jötunheim, Thor got banished here because he went and confronted the Jotuns without his father's permission.”

“Thor, Loki, Frigga, Odin… does that mean that all those myths are real?” 

“Well, not all of them, the night Thor told me about everything I showed him a book of myths and he was shocked by some of them. I guess there have been a couple of bad translations or parts of the stories lost over time, some of them were just plain lies. Lots of the stories about Loki, for example, were just made up by Thor’s friends to get back at Loki for the times he had embarrassed them. Besides, every story needs a good villain I guess. Although there might be a lot of truth in the ‘villainous’ aspect of his stories, considering what he did.” Jane said grimly. 

They remained in silence for a couple of long heavy seconds.

“Well the suspense is killing me now, what did he do?” Tony asked cautiously, Jane’s whole demeanour had suddenly changed, she had seemed so light and friendly throughout the entirety of their conversation and now she just seemed sad. 

“Loki he… well you know how Thor had been banished by Odin right? Well suddenly Odin fell into a magical coma or something, and since Thor was gone Loki became king. I guess it went to his head because first he visited Thor and lied to him, saying that his father was dead because of him. Then when Thor's friends started to suspect something was wrong and came here to bring Thor back, Loki sent a huge magic metal giant to kill him” she took a deep breath, “Thor went back up to confront him and I haven’t seen him since… it's almost been a year now.” 

Tony looked at his hands awkwardly, feelings weren’t exactly his strong suit, he noticed that neither of them had touched their drinks so he took a sip of his scotch. He stared at the liquid in the glass and swirled it around a bit. He had had his mind blown too many times this week and he suspected that this wasn’t the end of it. 

“You alright there?” Jane asked

“Sorry, I just… magic? I mean it all sounds a little far fetched” Tony said lamely

“Magic is just science we don't understand yet,” Jane said with a small smile, “thanks for the chat,” she wrote a number on the piece of paper she had drawn on, “call me if you have any more questions, or if you somehow get more information on what's going on with Thor.” Then Jane stood up, shook his hand and left. 

Tony stayed at the table a while as he finished his scotch, he had hoped that maybe he could have gotten more information about Loki and whether or not he could be the man from his dreams, visions, nightmares. Tony still wasn’t exactly sure what to call them. 

Even though some of the myths were apparently false, it still sounded as if Loki was a power-hungry maniac. At this point, Tony was in a way hoping that the man from his dreams and Loki were in fact _not_ one and the same. 

Tony gave a heavy sigh, grabbed his piece of paper and started to walk towards the door. 

He was aware of the girl sitting at the bar staring at him as he left but he thought nothing more of it. 

\---Loki---

Loki felt buried. He could see, hear, and feel his surroundings but it was as if he wasn't in his own mind any more, he had been locked out. 

He saw the Others’ face, “so Loki, are you ready to help us?"

_No_ “yes”

What, no no no! This could not be happening, why couldn’t he control his words?

“Yes what?” the Other gleefully asked.

_I’ll kill you_ “yes master”

His voice sounded strained, robotic, he wanted to hurt the Other, hurt himself, run away, something, but he couldn’t move, he could only observe. Internally he screamed.

“You’ve been a good boy so I’ll give you your skin back” 

Loki gave a sigh of relief as he felt his Æsir form melt back in place, he then cursed himself for being relieved about anything the monster before him was doing. 

The Other gestured behind him, suddenly Loki felt strong hands ripping his tattered garments from his body. And then he felt the familiar leathers of his armour as they were layered over his body. 

If he had been in his right mind he might have made a comment asking if the Other was enjoying the view, but then again If he could, he would probably just attack the Other and banish the smugness from his voice.

Loki kept his quips for his most interesting enemies and the Other was decidedly uninteresting, all he was, was deplorable.

Considering either option was useless because Loki was not in his right mind anymore, he wondered if he ever would be again. 

Finally, Loki felt his helmet be lowered onto his head, Loki had been destroyed and created again.

“Oh, and here” he felt something being pressed into his hand, his eyes moved towards it, it was a golden sceptre and in the middle of its blade sat the mind stone, “your weapon, and a reminder that we control you” 

The Other reached over then and touched the mind stone with one outstretched finger. Instantaneously Loki felt information pour into his broken mind: _Dr Erik Selvig, the Tesseract, avoid detection by shield, avoid the Avengers, avoid a spectacle, find somewhere large and desolate, open a portal big enough to transport the mothership._

“You have your instructions, now go” the Other commanded.

Loki felt his legs move and knew he couldn’t even attempt to resist this, internally gritting his teeth he let his body take him wherever he had to go.

—

It was an odd feeling, to say the least, being a passenger in your own body, it made him want to wash himself clean, rub the dirty magic off of him.

He wasn’t even glad to have his magic back because it had been twisted, corrupted, it wasn’t his own any more 

He turned his focus back to what his body was doing at the moment, he had astral projected into a shield base. He had not astral projected anywhere in a long time, he had not needed to, being able to travel between the nine realms was enough. Now he found himself beyond the branches of Yggdrasil, to bend space here he would need a very powerful artefact, even just mentally travelling here was draining him faster than he anticipated. Loki trailed behind Erik Selvig, the man was not fully under the control of the mind stone, but susceptible to its influence, all Loki would have to do now was whisper in the man's ear. 

Dr Selvig was talking to Fury now, repeating every word that Loki was whispering in his ear. 

“Your work has impressed a lot of people much smarter than I am” Loki heard Fury say.

“I have had a lot to work with, the foster theory, a gateway to another dimension, it’s unprecedented, isn’t it?” Loki was surprised that the ‘master spy’ hadn’t noticed the slightly vacant look in Selvig’s eyes, Loki had hoped he would. 

“Legend tells us one thing, history another… every now and then we find something that belongs to both” Fury had walked behind a small table and was opening a small silver suitcase, Loki’s eyes widened when he saw what was inside, he was shocked that his body was allowing him that much expression, but there were more important things to be thinking about right now. 

“What is it?” He knew what it was of course, but he needed the confirmation…

“Power, Doctor, if we can figure out how to tap it maybe unlimited power”

No doubt, it was the space stone, the Tesseract. Even though he was, quite literally, only here in spirit Loki could feel it calling out to him, he was itching to hold it, to have its magic mingle with his own. 

_“Well I guess that’s worth a look”_ Loki whispered

He wanted to smirk and was surprised to feel that his face was obeying his command. 

It seemed that his captors hadn’t taken into account how well his magic meshed with the artefact, he hadn’t even touched it yet and it was already lessening the effects the mind stone was having on him.

Internally he altered his instructions, perhaps he could have some fun after all. 

—???— 

She had been wandering around the city she had crash-landed in for a couple of days now, she was hungry and exhausted and scared. 

She hadn’t dared to sleep, it was dangerous being that defenceless, but at this point, she had no choice. 

She found herself outside some sort of establishment, Midgard's answer to a tavern, briefly she considered going inside, it looked so warm and safe in there, but she pushed that thought away. She had learnt quickly that other Midgardians didn’t take kindly to what they called ‘the homeless’. 

Instead, she crept behind the building and found a trash can big enough. She dragged her aching bones inside and rested her weary head, trying her best to ignore the stench that surrounded her. 

She wasn’t sure how long she had laid in a fitful sleep when she was awoken by a bright light. Frantically she pushed herself into a sitting position.

“Oi, get out of my dumpster!” A woman with long black hair and brown skin stared at her from outside the bin. 

All she could do was shake and suddenly she could feel hot tears on her skin, it was too much, it was all too much. 

The woman’s eyes changed from harsh to pitying, she gave a long sigh. “You look a right mess… alright come on” the woman gestured towards herself. 

The girl looked on in confusion and the woman gave a chuckle, “I’m not gonna bite, come let me take you inside, you look like you could use some food, and a bath… my name is Aditi by the way.”

—

Aditi started out by saying that she could only stay a couple of days, but a couple of days became a couple of weeks and then a couple of months. The woman kept saying that she couldn’t possibly stay much longer but whenever the girl went to leave Aditi pulled her back and said _“not like that silly girl, we need to find your parents or something, someone who can look after you”_

Aditi told her lots of things about herself, she almost never stopped talking in fact, _“it’s part of the job you see”_ she said with a laugh when asked about it.

Aditi told her about her family, about how she was half Indian on her mother’s side, her mother came from somewhere called Bangalore. She also told her about her grandpa on her dad's side, about how this used to be his bar and she had taken over when he passed away. 

Aditi called her sweetie or sweetums because she didn’t have a name and didn’t want one yet.

Aditi also asked a lot of questions she couldn’t answer, like where her parents were, or what had happened to her. But she never pushed too far, never asked too much of her. 

As thanks, she helped out as much as she could with the business and occasionally she would practice her magic and do small things to keep everything running smoothly, without Aditi knowing about it of course. 

Aditi called her, _“my little good luck charm”_ and that always made her feel warm inside.

Aditi also got her gifts, she bought her a notebook for drawing and lots of books to read in. Once Aditi got her a book of Norse mythology and the tales offended her slightly,  
_“This isn’t actually correct”_ she said with a huff

Aditi chuckled and ruffled her hair _“alright sweetums”_

—

...And that’s how she found herself sitting at the bar one day, drawing. as an odd couple of people sat nearby talking about things that probably should have been talked about in a quieter manner. 

Her interest was piqued as soon as she heard them start to talk about the nine realms, and she was fully eavesdropping when the conversation turned to Loki. 

Honestly, she wanted to scream at the woman because what she was saying was wrong. Yes Loki had made some mistakes but it wasn’t because of power, how dare she say that. 

She gritted her teeth and continued to draw, pressing angrily down on her paper with her pencil. 

The woman had been wrong but the man, he had been curious, he was looking for something, perhaps they were looking for the same thing. 

She stared at him as he left, despite Aditi having told her many times before that staring was rude. 

She then turned to Aditi, “who was that man?” she asked. 

“That, why that was Tony Stark! Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of him, he’s a bit of a legend, both a genius and a real-life superhero. You wanna hear something funny, I used to be in the same class as his ex, Pepper Potts, we were good friends too and…” Aditi trailed off noticing her complicated expression, “what's the matter sweetie?” 

At that she stared at the older woman and swallowed heavily, “he was talking about my brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun duuun. 
> 
> Lots of things went down in this chapter, so I hope you all enjoyed it.
> 
> It is also the last time that we are going to get ??? girl's perspective for a while, from now on it's just going to be Loki and Tony :)
> 
> p.s The song playing in the bar isn't particularly important for the story, it was just stuck in my head when I was writing this chapter.


	7. Ant meet boot pt.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to go through all of the events of Avengers 1 in one chapter so we could start to get to the good stuff but it was getting so long I decided to split it into two parts. Fret not, most of the next chapter is done already so it will be up this week.
> 
> In this chapter, I just wanted to show Loki's back and forward struggle with the mind stone, even when he feels in more control he really isn't. 
> 
> Also, I made a mistake in the previous chapter, Loki wasn't supposed to physically be in the shield base yet... I'll fix it tomorrow, I'm too tired right now. EDIT: I fixed it :)
> 
> Enjoy!

—Loki— 

Opening the portal in the way he had was unnecessarily grandiose and it definitely went against the orders of the Other. He could feel the sweat on his brow and the searing pain where his hand was touching the mind stone’s shaft, and yet he couldn’t keep the smile off of his face. He felt the portal close behind him and the already familiar feel of the space stone’s power washed over him before it was reduced to a gentle background hum once more. 

_You were supposed to mask your entrance with your magic. Nobody was supposed to know._

Internally Loki cursed the wretched object in his hand, he wished he could just drop the thing, but for now, it was his only weapon and he suspected that he wouldn’t physically be able to let go of the ostentatious staff anyway. 

Slowly he surveyed the room, there were a dozen or so physicists, technicians, and guards, then there was Fury, of course, Selvig too, and the man who called himself Hawkeye. 

Ah yes, he had heard of the little hawk, one of Fury’s footsoldiers and more importantly close to another person of note, black widow. In his head, a plan was already beginning to take form.

Finally, his eyes landed on the object that was in the middle of it all, the tesseract, Loki could feel his eyes dilate and his grin become ever-wider. However, before he could take a step towards it, the deep timbre of Nick Fury’s voice stopped him, “Sir, please put down the spear”

He stared at it again, feeling its influence re-enter his mind and desperately trying to fight back. It was an uphill battle, as the ice hot sear of his spear’s cursed magic relentlessly attacked his mind. He couldn’t completely ignore its orders then, but perhaps if he went along with them enough he would be in a better position to change them. 

_Nobody was supposed to know, now you must kill them all._

Loki had no problem with that.

It didn’t take long before only Fury, the Hawk, Selvig and one other man were left; after all, how could he have his fun if all of them were dead?

The Hawk tried to overpower him, it was pathetic really, but Loki could use that. “You have heart,” he said as he pressed the tip of his spear to the man’s chest. Loki was not sure that it would even work, the mind stone’s power was unfamiliar to him, and unlike the tesseract, it’s magic didn’t seamlessly mesh with his. Nonetheless, Barton’s eyes went dark and then slowly they returned to normal with just the irises remaining a pale blue colour. 

Barton holstered his weapon and Loki grinned before turning and trying again with another man who had inexplicably survived. Behind him, he was aware of Fury placing the tesseract in a metal suitcase. 

“Please don’t,” Loki said and turned, “I still need that” 

The conversation that followed was an obvious ploy from Fury to stall them, but Loki used his attempt at distraction to put Selvig under the mind stone’s power too. Then he wordlessly ordered the Hawk to shoot his former boss before they left the room.

As they walked towards the vehicles Loki suddenly started to feel exhausted, the high he had felt from using the tesseract was ancient history, he had pushed himself too far too fast. Creating the portal in the way he had, no matter how amazing it had felt in the moment, had been a mistake, it had taken an immense amount of effort and the aftershocks of that kind of power was going to tear the building apart. 

With a wince, he sat himself down in the back of a vehicle as Barton and the others got in the front. His vision was getting fuzzy, but he could see that the woman who had shown them to the vehicles was listening intently to a communication device. They needed to go _now._

The woman was shouting now, luckily Hawk had begun to drive away, unluckily half an army was following them. Loki gave a long-suffering sigh, and sent a burst of energy towards one of the vehicles on their tail, simultaneously a flash of pain and fatigue washed over him forcing him to slump back slightly, he would have to leave the rest of this up to the Hawk. 

Oh, and the fact that any second now the Shield building would be nothing but rubble would probably work in their favour too. 

Then they were finally out in the open and the Shield agents had given up their chase for now. 

_‘You're a failure, you must do better, Loki’_ a voice whispered in his ear and he couldn’t tell if it was the mind stone messing with him again or if it was simply a memory of something Odin had told him many times before. 

Glancing at his reflection in the glass of the car window behind him he gave a little gasp, by the norns he looked terrible, that simply wouldn’t do. Quickly he cast a glamour to cover up how bloodshot his eyes were, the dark purple bruises that adorned his skin and the bags under his eyes. He needed to put on a show, he needed to look perfect, and then everyone on this pitiful planet would know his name.

He would be in control again. 

And in the deepest reaches of Loki's mind, somewhere that perhaps he himself couldn't see, he hoped that someone would defeat him and take the mind stone away for good. 

—Tony—

_Water, again, why was it always water? It had been about a week since his last dream and he certainly hadn’t missed them._

_The water seemed colder this time and Tony shivered as he propelled his body upwards toward the surface._

_Only instead of breaking through his hand met a cold hard surface. He turned his head upwards, squinting his eyes to see through the murky water, his lungs burning all the while._

_Then his eyes widened as he realised he was trapped, a thick layer of ice separating him from the oxygen he so desperately needed._

_With as much force as he could muster, he pounded his arms against the ice, again and again, and again, but it was no use._

_Just as the watery world was fading to black around him, arms broke through the ice, tearing it apart as though it was nothing but paper. He felt himself being dragged upwards out of the water and held upright as he gasped for air. Only when he had stopped involuntarily spasming did the hands holding him let go._

_Tony stumbled slightly but did not fall, immediately he whipped his head upwards, he needed to see where he was._

_He instantly regretted ever looking up._

_Mourners in black clothes sat in rows making it look as if a murder of crows had taken up accommodation in the pews. Two coffins made from rich, beautiful, mahogany lay next to each other at the front of the room, when the light from the windows shone on them it made them seem too bright for such a sombre occasion. A man was standing in front of them, talking, but his words were muffled, it was as if Tony was still underwater._

_It was Christmas day, 1991, exactly a week after his parents' death, this was their funeral._

_He didn’t even have to see his younger self’s face to know that he was not crying, but instead staring forward at nothing at all. He remembered that day all too well, no matter how hard he tried to forget it._

_“Stark.” came a cold voice from behind him._

_“I almost miss the grisly corpses, this is the worst one you’ve shown me,” Tony said grimly, not turning around. He wasn’t quite ready to face death yet._

_“I’ll keep that in mind,” The voice said again._

_Tony took a deep breath and turned around, trying his best to keep his face impassive. “I had hoped I wouldn’t have to see you again”_

_“Then you are a fool Stark, nobody can avoid me”_

_“Well, I’m guessing most people don’t get to chat with you, it looks like that particular… privilege… is reserved for me.”_

_“Enough pleasantries Stark” Death hissed, “he is here, finally”_

_“Aww, you don’t wanna talk to me anymore? Wait what do you mean, ‘he is here’, who? The guy who dresses like he’s in a Shakespearean production, the one from my visions? Also, where is here? Right here, or here as in America, or here as in on earth, what?”_

_She held up a hand stopping him and hummed impatiently, “just, look” she pointed down and the ground below them turned into ice again._

_Below the ice he saw the man stepping through a blue portal, his hair was slightly longer now and he had an odd staff clasped in his right hand. He was decked out in full leather armour coloured green, black, and gold._

_As the man raised his head, a cruel smile on his face, Tony noticed how broken the man actually looked. His face was drenched in sweat, he had massive bags under his eyes and bruises adorned his skin. His eyes looked terrible too, dead and lifeless, his face that would otherwise be quite handsome was marred with hurt._

_Tony looked at the room the man was in and realised with surprise that it was a shield base, their logo was on everything and Nick Fury himself was standing there._

_Fury said something that must have pissed the man off because suddenly he was raising his staff and…_

_Nothing…_

_The world faded to black_

_“Find him, Stark”_

_And then Tony Stark woke up._

\---

The whole day, Tony tried his best to push, whatever it was he had just seen, out of his mind. It was easy enough as his day was packed, he was adding the final touches to his tower, Stark Tower, it was going to be a fully sustainable, private, space controlled by him and JARVIS. 

To be fair, Pepper had helped a great deal with the process too, but this was his baby, and secretly he credited every success in the project to himself. 

Right now he was flying back to his tower, he had finally connected the electricity and now the exterior was beautifully lit up with his name. Pepper had arrived at the tower when he was out and had been helping him with the electricity problem from the tower itself. 

He landed on the helipad of his tower and the familiar process of his suit removal began.

“Sir, Agent Coulson of SHIELD is on the line,” Jarvis informed him.

_Shit shit shit, what if this was about his mystery man? Tony desperately needed that to not be the case. For the sake of his sanity._

“I'm not in. I'm actually out.”

“Sir, I'm afraid he's insisting.” 

“Well i’m afraid that I can’t be bothered to deal with him right now, tell him that”

“Of course sir.”

Tony shook his head and stepped inside the tower, “honey, I’m ho-”

He stopped in his tracks when he saw that Pepper was not alone, a dark-haired girl who looked oddly familiar was standing next to her. 

“Uhh Pep, who is she?”

“Oh, so funny story, an old friend of mine called in a favour, she’s been looking after her for about a year now and apparently the girl is really interested in both technology and business, she certainly seems to have a knack for it anyway.”

“But why did you bring her here?”

“Just trust me on this Tony, it's fine, she’s been helping me out a lot this week and I thought she deserved to come to see the Tower” Pepper leant forward and whispered in his ear, “I think she's a bit of a fan, she’s been asking about you all week” 

Tony narrowed his eyes at that, too many questions were never a good sign. 

“Please Tony, it's fine, we just popped by to help with this last part anyway, we’ll be out of your hair soon enough,” she said with a grin, “it also gives me a good excuse to catch up with Aditi”

Tony turned to the girl and stuck out his hand, “well in that case, it’s nice to meet you” he still couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he had met her before.

The girl took his hand, “it’s an honour to meet you sir” the girl said, oddly enough she had a British accent.

“Honor is a bit much,” Tony said with a laugh, “most people who meet me are disappointed” 

The girl frowned slightly at that, but before Tony could ask if they had met each other before, Jarvis chimed in, “Sir, the telephone. I'm afraid my protocols are being overwritten…”

“Stark, we need to talk, this is urgent” came Coulson's frustrated voice through the stark phone lying on the table. Tony gave a sigh, Shield wasn’t supposed to be able to do that, he would have to get it fixed. 

Then the elevator doors opened and Agent Phil Coulson stepped in, apparently, the security problem was worse than he thought, “security breach” Tony said dryly, “this is a violation of my rights you know”

Coulson ignored him and held out a file, “we need you to take a look at this”

“I don't like being handed things” Tony muttered

“That's alright, `cause I love to be handed things. So, let's trade.” Pepper said with a smile, taking the file from Coulson's outstretched hand and passing it to a disgruntled Tony. 

“Ah well we must be off then,” Pepper turned to the girl beside her, “we can’t interfere with government business now can we?” 

“Of course miss Potts,” the girl quickly walked over to Tony then and pressed something into his hand, from anywhere else it might look as if she was shaking his hand “I would like you to have this,” she said in a low voice, “goodbye Mr Stark” 

And then they both were gone behind the elevator doors.

Cautiously, Tony looked at what she had put in his hand, it was a folded up piece of paper. Slowly he opened it up and almost dropped it in shock. On it was a very well-drawn image of the man from his dreams, beneath it was written _is this the man you are looking for? His name is Loki._

Confused and concerned, he turned his attention back to an impatient agent Coulson

—Loki—

Apart from an unpleasant talk with the Other, things were going well, very well. It almost made him feel content, although his head still hurt where it had been touched by the Other’s hand. The machine that would create the portal was coming along, and so the Other had nothing much to complain about, nevertheless, Loki could sense the suspicion in his words, he would have to be careful. 

The machine that would harness the Tessaract’s power was slowly but surely being completed, but Selvig needed materials, and to get those materials, Barton needed a distraction. A distraction that Loki would happily provide, it had been a while since he’d had some fun. 

Loki found himself in a building in a place that the human’s called Germany, the midguardians mingled around a floor below him. A man was about to give a speech, unfortunately for him, Barton needed his eye. 

Loki flipped his staff in his hand, relishing the feeling as contact between him and it were severed for the briefest of seconds before making his way down the steps. As he descended, he smoothed his hands down against his midgaurdian attire, he preferred his leathers but at least the clothes were comfortable and suited his body well, but then again what didn’t.

Deliberately he made his way over to the man who was speaking and in one fluid motion, he had knocked the man into a statue of a bull. 

Immediately the room became full of fearful Midgardians, rushing this way and that to escape. They were nothing but ants and he had disturbed their nest, Loki relished in the chaos of it all. 

After the scan of the man’s eye had been sent to Barton, Loki followed the throng of humans outside. It was time for phase two of his plan. 

No doubt, Nick Fury’s group of merry men were already on their way, so why would he stop the show now? 

“Kneel before me.” 

With ease, he created a couple of illusion copies of himself and changed into his battle armour before addressing the crowd he now had surrounded. 

“I said KNEEL” 

Finally, they listened, and the mass of people sank to the ground.

“Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.”

One old man stood up, “I will never kneel to men like you” he probably thought he was being brave and noble, Loki resisted the urge to roll his eyes. 

In a half bored voice Loki replied, “there are no men like me”

He pointed his spear towards the old man, any second now, he fired a beam of energy and… there it was. 

A flash of blue and then the blast he had sent was being propelled back at him, hitting him square in the chest. He was momentarily knocked down but swiftly he was back on his feet, considering the man in front of him.

“The soldier. A man out of time.” 

"I'm not the one who's out of time"

Loki fought the captain then, and despite trying desperately to throw the fight, the mind stone was having none of it. Once again he felt completely under its control as he relentlessly knocked the super-soldier down again and again.

Suddenly a midgaurdian song started to play and Loki looked upwards only to be immediately knocked down by a blast of energy, dropping his staff as he flew backwards through the air. 

The man of iron landed before him and pointed his blaster at Loki’s head, “your move reindeer games” 

In that moment, he could honestly have kissed the man in the metal suit, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity Loki felt completely lucid. The pure shock of being thrown backwards, mind stone ripped out of his grasp, had momentarily broken his mental chains. Even now, however, he could feel the Other reaching back into his mind, seeping in like a particularly persistent fungus. 

Loki settled for peering at the man before him and raising his hands in surrender.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed writing this today, I was just listening to my "music that inspires me to write" playlist and was really feeling it you know?
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!


	8. Ant meet boot pt.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, first of all, I'm really sorry that this update is so late!! I've been swamped with work and exams last week so I just didn't have the time... But it's here now and thankfully I have a lot more free time coming up so I'll be able to write more :)
> 
> Secondly, how the hell did I manage to get over a thousand hits on this!?? Like what? Thank you so much to everyone who's reading my story and to the people who are leaving comments and kudos, I love and appreciate you all ♡♡♡

\---Tony---

Tony was shocked about a couple of things.

Firstly that the man who was now sitting helplessly in front of him was definitely, 100%, the man from his visions, which meant Loki and him were one and the same. Secondly, that the strange girl from earlier had somehow known about both Loki and the fact that Tony was looking for him. Thirdly, Loki, the apparently terrible, powerful, evil Loki had just… surrendered… and was now staring innocently up at Tony through long eyelashes as if he hadn’t just terrorised a large group of people. 

However, he couldn’t really ask any questions now, not with Captain America himself standing right next to him and Natasha touching down with the quinjet nearby.

Trying his best to shake the uneasy feeling gathering in the pit of his stomach, Tony grabbed Loki by the shoulders and started to carry him towards the Jet.

“My my, man of Iron, how strong you are” Loki deadpanned at him, “although I suspect your strength is solely in your fancy machines, not in what lies beneath”

Tony barked out a laugh at that, “big words for someone I’m literally holding in my arms, and hey if you stick around you might just get to see what is beneath all this. I don’t stay in the suit all the time you know”

Loki raised his eyebrow and smirked, “oh will I indeed Stark?”

“Ah no, you won't get to see _that much_ , don’t get your hopes up,” Tony said before turning and carrying Loki past a slightly flustered looking Steve. 

“Hey, Loki, is it?” he said as he sat the Asgardian down in one of the quin-jet’s seats

Loki smirked at him again as Tony tied him into the seatbelts, “can’t stay away from me Stark? I can not say I blame you, the company is… not exactly desirable”

Tony scowled as he glanced back at Mr America and Natasha.

As depressing as it sounded, Loki truly was the most amusing individual on the ship, apart from himself of course. Now he had to sit on a jet for an hour with them all, great. 

Tony cursed shield’s outdated technology, no way did this have to take this long. 

Loki turned ever so slightly, a large closed-mouth smile plastered on his face. His dark, emerald green eyes seemed to bore right into Tony. 

“I’ve gotta say, it was surprisingly easy to get you here, it was almost as if you wanted to be captured, that part of your plan is it?” 

Loki did not react at all, he just kept staring. 

“Interesting that you wanted all those people to kneel to you… tell me Loki, do you often feel the need to flaunt your power over people? Overcompensating for something, your own lack of power maybe?”

That had been a complete gamble but based on the minute twitch in Lok’s face, it had paid off. 

“Who sent you here Rudolph?”

Loki’s face didn’t change, except for his smile faltering ever so slightly, losing its edge. He didn’t answer either so Tony continued. 

“Ah so there is a boss somewhere, right? Someone pulling the strings and all that? How did someone get to control _you_? You tricked your way into control of, wherever it is you come from, so you must be pretty powerful… Are they paying you back in some way? Or are you being forced?”

Loki's eyes narrowed into slits at that and for just a moment an unreadable emotion flashed across his face. Almost instantly his face was an impassive mask once more. However the smile was also gone now, Tony felt a pang of guilt at that, _wait why was he feeling guilty_? 

“Are you drunk Stark? I hear you so often are, it would explain the nonsense you are spewing” Loki leaned forward then, and as he talked Tony could feel his cool breath on his face, “I would suggest you stop talking about matters beyond your understanding. Leave me.”

Tony could not believe this, Loki was _their_ prisoner and yet _he_ was dismissing Tony. He gave a short growl under his breath and turned away. 

Tony took a couple of steps back to where he had been standing before, Steve Rodgers turned and looked at him for a second. 

“Do we have any more information about who this guy is and what he wants?”

“I still know nothing about the guy apart from the reports that shield gave me, surely you’ve read them too” Tony replied easily, it wasn’t a lie, not really.

“What did you ask him about? Did he give you anything?”

“He gave me nothing, wouldn’t say a word”

Rodgers looked at him with thinly veiled doubt, _damn it_ he must have seen Loki talking.

“Nothing important that is, he was just trying to mess with me” 

At that Rodgers gave a small nod and turned away staring at Loki, “I don’t like it” he muttered 

“What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?”

“I don't remember it being ever that easy. This guy packs a wallop.”

“Still, you are pretty spry, for an older fellow. What's your thing? Pilates?”

“What?”

“It's like callisthenics. You might have missed a couple of things, you know, doing time as a Capsicle.”

Steve turned to look at Tony again, an annoyed look on his face, “Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in.”

“Yeah, there's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you.

There was a flash of lightning outside and the jet shuddered, Natasha said something but Tony didn’t hear it, he was too focused on Loki’s face.

His eyes were wide and peering around the ship, the fear obvious on his face. Another flash of lightning made Loki wince slightly, it seemed unnatural for this man to cower about anything and yet… 

“What's the matter? Scared of a little lightning?” the captain's drawl cut through his thoughts and Tony shot him an annoyed look. 

“I'm not overly fond of what follows.” came Loki’s reply and suddenly there was chaos. Another flash of lightning and the jet’s ramp opened, on it landed none other than the man from Fury’s surveillance footage. Thor. 

And then Loki was gone. 

Immediately Tony put his helmet back on and stepped towards the ramp, “now there's that guy.” he grumbled.

Natasha turned to look at him, “another Asgardian?”

“Doesn't matter. If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost.”

And yes, obviously he was following for the sake of the tesseract, but it was also because Loki looked genuinely scared and hurt. It was an expression Tony had seen before, in his very first vision. 

Tony was not going to let Loki go away with this other Asgardian, not before he had gotten some answers.

Ignoring the good captain’s protests, Tony jumped off the Quin-jet and into the eye of the storm. 

\--- Loki ---

Reuniting with the man who was once his brother was not an enjoyable experience.

Seeing him made everything hurt anew, his fall from Asgard replaying in his mind

Loki wondered if Thor had even mourned, after all, why would he? 

“Where is the Tesseract” Thor growled after unceremoniously dumping him on a mountainside 

Well that seemed to answer his previous question quite succinctly, no, Thor had not mourned. 

Loki laughed mirthlessly, “I missed you too”

The conversation that followed confused Loki deeply, on one hand, he felt a malicious satisfaction at being able to shout at and taunt his brother, on the other hand, he felt like he had swallowed glass. 

“Who showed you this power? Who controls the would-be-king?” Thor shouted as he held Loki over the cliff-edge.

Why was everyone asking that? Was he really so easy to read, was it impossible to even consider him being successful on his own?

_Yes Loki, it is impossible to believe, because you have never been successful on your own, face it, you’re weak._

Loki blinked rapidly, trying to quiet the voices.

“So you take the world I love as recompense for your imagined slights. No, the Earth is under my protection, Loki.”

_“Imagined slights”_ Loki laughed but the words cut into him like a knife. 

Had Thor really been so ignorant, had he really not seen what had happened during their childhood? That Loki had literally been a shadow, an example of what not to be, never good enough for Odin.

It got worse and worse as they both grew older, as Loki strayed from the usual path. As he chose politics and magic over battle and brawn. 

Loki always took pleasure in fighting with his words, nothing felt better than sending barbed comments and snide remarks intended to fluster his opponent, especially if his opponent had the mental capability to send them right back 

Sadly not many people in Asgard had shared the same sentiment, his brother’s friends least of all. 

His brother had never hurt him, physically, not without it being a spar they had both agreed upon beforehand or just simple teasing. However, Thor tended to turn a blind eye to what his friends were doing, or maybe he really just was _that_ ignorant, who knows. 

It felt in a way pointless to hold a grudge about such a small thing now, but Loki was very good at holding grudges. 

What Loki had never understood was why it was so wrong that he learnt to use his words and magic in the way he did, instead of favouring being knocked around in an arena. 

The king of Asgard would definitely need politics, much more than he would need battle prowess, but he would also need magic to wield the allfather's staff. Odin used magic every day, and yet...

_“It’s cowardly Loki, by choosing magic you are choosing the coward’s path”_ Odin had said to him.

He understood now, it never had anything to do with what talents he had gained and everything to do with the dirty secret beneath his skin. 

And where had they been anyway, as he had sat for months on end in a cell, being tortured almost constantly? Had Heimdal decided to ignore his pain, could he really not see outside the nine realms, had Loki been that well hidden?

Or did they decide that it was the punishment that he deserved? Did they turn a blind eye? Were they just glad to be rid of him at last?

He knew the strong emotions he was feeling didn’t help his situation at all, he knew that his mind was opening wider, inviting the Other’s influence again, but he simply didn’t care. 

“You listen well, brother...” Thor shouted, and then in a flash of red and gold he was gone.

“I’m listening,” Loki said because even if reality was crumbling around him, Loki would still find time for sass. 

Peering over the edge of the cliff he was on, he felt a pang of worry when he couldn’t see where his brother had gone. Loki hastily repressed that feeling, Thor didn’t deserve his concern. 

Then he saw them, Thor and the man of iron, crashing through the trees.

Loki raised his eyebrows at that, why in the nine realms was _he_ getting involved? 

Loki heard Thor incredulously exclaim, “do not touch me again!” and from the distance, he heard Stark shout at Thor, “Then don't take my stuff!” 

Loki bristled at that, he didn’t belong to anyone, least of all this strange Midgardian. 

_Oh but you do Loki, you’ve always belonged to someone. First, you were Odin’s little war prize and now you belong to me. No one will ever see you as an equal, you are an object to be used and then thrown away._

A distorted amalgamation of voices echoed in his head, Thor, Odin, The Other, Stark, a cacophony of sound threatening to split his head in two. 

So Loki did something he hadn’t let himself do in a very long time. He sank down onto the uncomfortable, hard ground and cried. 

\--- Tony ---

After Tony’s violent introduction to the other prince of Asgard, he had flown up to retrieve Loki from where Thor had left him.

Loki had stood looking down on him as he approached with a smirk, “three muscular men fighting over me, I’m truly flattered.” he had said, but there was an odd look in his eyes that Tony couldn’t quite place. 

Again Tony had wondered why he hadn’t just escaped then, he had ample opportunity too. The fact that Loki was still there just proved that being caught was part of his plan, but then again it could just be because he needed his weapon. Nevertheless, they would all have to be careful around him. 

Tony strolled into the room Loki was being held. He was standing still in the circular cage that must have been built for the big green beast that Dr Banner occasionally turned into. 

In his cell, Loki was turned away from him

“Do you use hair care products or is your hair just naturally greasy?”

“Ah, Stark.” 

“No seriously, whatever it is you use, you should go easy on it, I’m sure your natural hair would be a lot more flattering”

Loki turned around then and his green eyes looked Tony up and down, he heard the god mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, “Shorter than I expected but not bad” under his breath.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” 

“Are you truly here to inquire about my hair or is there a point to this conversation?” 

“Oh don’t worry, there is a point both to this conversation... and your hair, multiple points _on_ your hair in fact”

Loki slowly raised an eyebrow and Tony continued 

“Let’s just say, I have an interest in you and where you came from.”

“I think it would be fair to say plenty of people have an interest in me after I attacked your planet, why should I converse with you?”

“Well I would be interested regardless, I mean literal alien. Hello. But I’ve found myself in a bit of a special situation. I was warned of your arrival you see, I've seen your face long before you came here”

“Won’t your comrades be wondering where you are Stark?” Loki said dismissively

“Oh don’t worry about me, I made the security cameras replay a loop. It was easier than expected, Shield really does have dismal security, but for the average person, I suppose it would be quite impressive. You can clap now if you want.”

Loki hummed noncommittally, only sparing the briefest of glances towards the camera in his cell. 

“I feel like this situation could be a lot easier for both of us if you would just talk to me properly”

“I am sure my compliance would make your life easier Stark, however, I do not see how it would help me” 

Tony felt his patience begin to wane, he took a deep breath to calm himself down, he knew it was a bad idea to give this guy anything. He had to remember not to give too much away. 

So of course he proceeded to not follow his own advice.

“Ok look, I’ve been trying to figure out who you are for a couple of weeks now. I’ve seen you fall, crying might I add, through space, I’ve seen you be tortured, and I’ve seen you blow up a shield base with a magic glow stick. It seems that for some reason we are connected, you’re in pain, I’m fucking confused. I’ve had my mind blown one too many times this week so for both our sakes could you please explain what’s going on?” 

Loki’s eyes widened and he took a step back, for a moment the god’s form flickered and Tony got a glimpse of bruised skin. Loki eyed him up and down with a mix of suspicion and apprehension.

“I- I” 

For a moment it seemed as if Loki was actually going to tell him something. Then, suddenly, Loki’s hands shot to his head, he slumped down to his knees and in his eyes, there was nothing but pain 

Leave me” he hissed through his teeth.

Tony just watched with mild concern, he was very much aware that this could be nothing more than a trick.

“Leave” he shouted, more forcefully this time. 

“Oh alright, I apologise for trying to help, your majesty” 

At that Loki growled but Tony had already left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, writing italics in ao3 is kinda a pain since they don't automatically copy/paste, and I use A LOT of italics... sigh... 
> 
> Also just fyi, next chapter is the last one that will take place during the first Avengers movie.


	9. Ant meet boot pt.3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ey, I'm back on schedule again I guess, sorry for that little blip, I am of course going to try and stick to my promise of updating during the weekends.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoy this next chapter! It's going to be the last one that takes place during the first Avengers movie.

—Loki—

Tony Stark was a small man with a huge ego and an annoyingly charming smile to match. Furthermore, Loki hated him with all his being.

How could he possibly know about all that, how could he have guessed? And how could Loki let words from a Midgardian break his facade? The man definitely knew… something…. and besides, Loki had shown too much.

Loki was not used to being shaken this easily. The mind stone, that must be the cause of all this. Loki just had to stick to his plan, Stark would play a role in it, yes, but in the long run, he was inconsequential, Midgard was inconsequential.

He just needed to escape from the Other’s clutches once and for all, expel his foul magic. Oh, how amazing it would feel to cleanse himself, his magic, to feel truly alive again without a looming darkness in the back of his mind. It would be a shallow victory, a cowardly escape, but for now, it was all he desired, he would have to deal with everything else later. 

Shield and the Other’s forces would be too busy fighting each other, neither would notice his disappearance until it was too late. 

_Stick to the plan, stick to the plan_ Loki repeated the words in his head like a mantra but someone kept interrupting him. Stark’s words intruding on his thoughts.

Yes Stark, with his deep chestnut brown eyes and sharp words, a mere human had shaken him this much. The man had taken his hands and dug into old scars, reopening wounds that had barely healed over. Why was the man affecting him so? Was it something about the way he seemed almost concerned? 

_“It seems that for some reason we are connected, you’re in pain, I’m fucking confused.”_

Petulantly Loki stomped his left foot on the ground in annoyance and started pacing an angry circle in his cell, this was supposed to be a triumphant moment, everything was going according to plan and yet... 

How did he wish that Stark would just- what was that delightful Midgardian term?- fuck off.

Suddenly Loki froze, intricate patterns of swirling frost and ice were creeping up the glass in front of him, slowly he looked down at his shaking hands which had turned blue. With a disgusted snarl, he turned them back to their Asgardian form and prayed that the cameras were still looped. 

He had to let the Other back into his mind soon, it was easier to keep him at bay with the sceptre out of reach but time was running out and he was clearly losing control of his magic.

Bracing an arm against the now freezing glass, Loki took one fearful gasping breath and started reaching out to the mindstone’s power.

He could practically see his own magic shy away from its influence but he kept pushing forward, there was no other way to do this, no other way to escape.

Then he froze and took a step backwards, it was done, and already he could feel a foul presence in his head. 

_You’ve been slipping Loki, you did the right thing letting me control you again..._

Somewhere behind him, he heard the hiss of a door opening and light footsteps approaching his cell. In the reflection of the glass he saw that it was the black widow, Natasha Romanoff, but he did not really register that she was there. 

Loki closed his eyes and as if the presence had never left, someone else was sharing his mind once again. 

—

Loki felt as though he was slipping in and out of consciousness. Occasionally he would be somewhat in control and then without warning the Other would take control completely. Sometimes it would be for longer periods of time and sometimes it was simply for a second, just a couple of words changed in the middle of a sentence. When it happened, the world became muffled and blurry as if he had been violently shoved underwater. 

Painful was too kind of a word, there were daggers on the inside of his skull, on the inside of his skin poking, prodding, tearing him apart and all there was to show for it was a slightly manic look in his eyes. 

Loki blinked twice and shook his head slightly from side to side as the world around him came into focus. He was standing atop Stark tower, sceptre grasped so tightly in his hand that his knuckles had turned white. 

Out here, the wind was vicious, whipping his raven hair in every direction, the biting chill made him feel at home, he did not want to think about why.

Normally he detested anything at all messing with his hair, but right now as he stared across the city skyline he felt a brief repose from the agony in his head. It was almost as if he was floating above his body, removed from the world below him. 

It was almost like in the fairytales Frigga told him when he was little, perhaps his spirit would gently float away from all this pain to a land full of flowers and warmth and happiness.

However, fairytales weren’t real and even if they were, Loki’s life was the furthest thing from a fairytale possible.

Loki stepped to the edge of the building and stared down at the ground below him, he wondered if the fall would kill him, knowing his luck, probably not.

As he gazed across the city again he let himself sigh, he felt no satisfaction about what was about to happen, but he felt no guilt either.

Loki turned his focus to the tower. It was actually extremely impressive, at least for a Midgardian building, it’s power core was absolutely perfect for his portal of course and the fact that Stark had his name on the building for all to see was amusing to Loki. 

For a brief moment, Loki considered how nice it would be to have a tower with _his_ name emblazoned on the side, perhaps he and Stark had more in common than he originally thought. 

Loki turned and smiled up at the landing pad of Stark tower where the man himself was removing his amour.

Well, at least this wasn’t going to be boring...

—

The conversation certainly was not dull. It was a solid distraction at least, from everything else that was going on. However, something had clearly changed since they last spoke. Stark was acting colder, he had a calm exterior, as always, but there was definitely anger bubbling underneath. That suited Loki just fine, he did not need anyone’s misplaced pity. 

As the man stepped out from behind the bar, drink in hand, Loki’s eyes shot to the two metal rings around Stark’s wrists, they had definitely not been there before. Ah, so that was his plan, the rings must be connected to one of his suits, clever, very clever, but not clever enough. 

Raising his sceptre, Loki sneered at the man before him, “How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?”

Gently he tapped the mind stone to Tony Stark’s chest, letting his power seep through him and push the mindstone’s influence into the man in front of him. Any second now his body would tense up as the venomous magic started to course through his veins from his heart, and when it reached the man's brain the deep brown colour of his eyes would become clouded by a pale blue. 

Only it didn’t work, the magic never entered the man’s body, it was as if there was some kind of barrier. Incredulously Loki tapped the sceptre to his chest a couple more times, “this usually works” he muttered. 

The apprehension on Stark's face bled into smugness as Loki continued his futile efforts to get the man under his control. 

“Well, performance issues, you know? Could happen to anyone…”

Loki had a retort on the tip of his tongue but the words never left his mouth, instead the presence of mind stone magic in his own mind reared its ugly head once more.

_This is taking too long, get rid of him._

That wasn’t his plan, that wasn’t his plan at all! Or was it? The world around him seemed to move in slow motion, and Loki watched himself grab hold of Tony Stark’s neck and fling him out of the building. 

“You will all fall before me” he roared but the words felt foreign on his tongue. 

Above him, he felt the portal open. 

Through the smashed window Iron Man appeared, half-heartedly Loki raised his staff and immediately got blasted back by one of Stark's repulsors. 

Wincing from the pain Loki watched the man fly away in a blaze of gold and red. 

\---

After he had regained his composure, Loki made his way outside once more, he watched the chitauri descend from the sky and repressed a shudder. Months on end they had tortured him but he knew that the anger he felt towards them had no purpose, they were no better than robots, if their connection to the mothership were to be severed they would die too. Actually, he wasn’t really sure if they _could_ die, perhaps they would just stop. Whatever the case, they were to some extent under his control now, so he had to get over his almost pavlovian fear and repulsion fast. 

Looking up at the portal he smirked, messing around with Selvig’s mind had paid off, the wormhole was considerably smaller than it was supposed to be, it was definitely too small for the mothership to pass through!

A voice he knew better than his own snapped him out of his thoughts and he slowly turned around.

“Loki! Turn off the Tesseract or I'll destroy it!” Thor roared, red cape billowing out behind him. 

Loki cursed slightly under his breath, he knew that the glass cage wouldn’t have killed Thor but he had hoped it would stall him for longer. “You can't. There is no stopping it. There is only war!” Loki shouted back at him.

Thor’s eyes hardened at that and he changed his stance ever so slightly. Loki immediately noticed that he had gotten into his battle stance, the average person probably wouldn’t even see the minute change but when you have fought with someone thousands of times before you tend to notice that sort of thing. 

“So be it.”

They both leapt at each other at the same time, Thor swinging his hammer and oh, how Loki despised that hammer. He clearly remembered the day Thor had gotten it, a prize for a siege that Loki had planned but not participated in. Loki had gotten nothing that day, of course. 

The fight felt familiar yet vastly different, the way they moved around each other, a jab, a duck, a swipe, they had done it so many times before but now they were no longer brothers. They were enemies and this was no friendly spar. 

Alas, Thor always was stronger and today was no exception, he held Loki in place, the Hammer and staff between them and forced him to look at the now burning city. 

“Look at this! Look around you! You think this madness will end with your rule?”

Frantically Loki tried to look away but he couldn’t, the chitauri were everywhere, the familiar terror he felt at the sight of them was welling up inside of him again.

Time seemed to slow down and he felt the pull of the mind stone, he looked down at it in confusion because it felt different. It still hurt but it definitely was not the Other this time, it was a kinder presence somehow, the pain wasn’t as sharp. For just a second the gem at the end of the sceptre flashed purple and his mind felt truly free. 

Again he looked towards the city at the destruction that was happening, and Loki really should not care, Midgardian lives were barely a blip on the radar anyway. And yet he felt tears well up in his eyes, they were beneath him, they weren’t an even match _they did not deserve this._

He stared Thor deep in the eyes, “it’s too late, it's too late to stop it.” 

Thor looked at him, hope filling those puppy dog eyes of his, “No. We can. Together!” 

For a moment Loki was about to accept, maybe Thor truly could help, maybe they could be brothers again, go back to Asgard together. 

But that was a foolish thought.

It would never happen, it would not matter if he helped or not, he would never be accepted, and he would forgive Asgard or Odin for what they had done to him. 

Looking down at the mind stone again Loki saw that it flashed purple again before slowly fizzling out. As soon as it did he felt the Other in his mind again. 

With a small hand gesture, he retrieved a tiny dagger from his inter-dimensional storage space and plunged it into Thor’s side. 

Thor keeling over from the pain revealed a young Jotun girl who had seemingly been standing there the whole time, her eyes widened as she made eye contact with Loki. She rapidly twisted her hands, her eyes flashed with purple seidr, and then she was gone among the branches of Yggdrasil.

He blinked in confusion, he wanted to cry out, stop her from leaving, demand to ask who she was, how her magic could be so similar yet different from his. 

But Thor was already starting to get up and the girl was long gone so Loki had no choice but to turn his focus back to the beating he was no doubt about to receive.

—

The green beast had finally caught up with him and it was angry. 

Apparently, the thing could be trained because instead of attacking its teammates as Loki had anticipated, it was coming after him. 

He hated the ugly thing and hated that his plan had not worked.

“Enough! You are, all of you beneath me! I am a god you dull creature, and I will not be bullied…” Loki shouted but was cut off mid-sentence as the thing grabbed him with its massive paw and started hitting him against the ground. 

With each time he was smashed into the ground he felt the Other’s presence slipping further and further away. 

The pain was excruciating of course and he was frankly quite terrified that the beast would break him in two, but Loki was ok with that as long as it meant the Other was gone from his mind for good. 

“Puny god,” the hulk said before leaving and he was honestly surprised that the thing could talk. 

Shakily he stood up and walked over to the window and looked up at the portal, and then he did a double-take because Stark was flying towards it. 

It made no sense, why would he-? 

And then Loki saw the explosive that Stark was holding and understood. 

With bated breath, he saw Stark disappear into the darkness. 

Loki felt it when the mothership was destroyed, unblinkingly he stared at the portal, waiting for that flash of red and gold to fly back through. Only it didn’t, and the portal was starting to close. 

With the absolute last of his strength, Loki reached into the sky and sent his seidr up to the portal, holding it open, just a little longer. He gritted his teeth to stop himself from crying out and only when he saw Stark falling through did he let go. 

Loki felt as though he was falling forever until his head met the cold floor. After that, there was only darkness and for the first time in a long time, peace. 

— Tony —

Tony Stark knew that he was going to die, this was it, his last hurrah. 

Who would have guessed he would die a hero? 

With a small smile, he let go of the missile and tried to drown out Jarvis’ frantic reminders that his suit was shutting down. 

The portal was going to close, he just knew it, he was going to die in the cold dark void of space, alone. Hey at least there was a good view, stars, nebulas and all that, it wasn’t the worst place to die all things considered. 

Jarvis’ chatter stopped as the systems in the suit shut down for good. 

This was it then, the end, goodbye. 

_“Not yet”_ , a voice whispered in his ear.

He turned towards the voice but there was no-one there. All he could see in the corner of his eye was the blue portal shrinking faster than he would be able to reach it. 

But he kept falling. 

And somehow he fell through the portal, it was as if it had stopped growing smaller, a wall of green sparks was holding it open. 

The last thing he noticed before he passed out was that the green sparks were the same colour as Loki’s eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know there was a lot of time jumps and I'm sorry! In the future, I will try to do proper action scenes however for the sake of the story I obviously wanted to focus on the Loki-centric parts of the first Avengers movie. Because of future events I have planned out for the story, I needed to write about some of the events in the movie however I did not want/need/or think that it would be interesting to rewrite the entire movie. I hope that makes some sort of sense :)


	10. Aftershock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> I cannot believe that this has almost 2000 hits, that's crazy! Thank you so much to everyone who's continuing to read this story! I realise that I've been primarily writing Loki's perspective these last couple of chapters, I hope that's ok, we'll be getting back to Tony soon enough. 
> 
> Just a little trigger warning, this chapter contains thoughts of suicide, references to self-harm and what could be interpreted as an anxiety attack. If any of that upsets you, this particular chapter may not be for you. I will have a short summary of what happens in the endnotes. 
> 
> I don't want to promise anything but I have written large chunks of the next two chapters already so I might be able to post them ahead of schedule! I guess we'll just have to wait and see if that actually happens ;)
> 
> Anyways, thanks again to anyone who comments, leaves kudos or reads this fic, it means the world to me!

\---Loki---

Loki was back in a cell, which at this point wasn’t exactly an unusual place for him to be. 

Being on Asgard again was intolerable, and what was even more unbearable was the fact that he probably could have escaped Midgard but instead decided to play hero and save Tony Stark. Loki sank down into a chair and groaned, why had he done that? Nobody even knew he had done it, everyone, probably even Stark, just thought the man had gotten through the portal in time. It was just so unlike him to just do something spontaneous for someone else. He blamed it on the Hulk, the overgrown green monster had probably given him a concussion, that was the only possible explanation for his actions.

He desperately wished that Odin had just offed him after he had been dragged back to this cursed floating rock. Each night he was plagued with nightmares and each day was no better. It was an endless dull monotony where his brain kept torturing him with memories of his failures. 

So he was reduced to an existence of feeling sorry for himself in a cell and suffering the angry or smug looks that the guards gave him. Loki honestly did not understand what their problem was, after all, he had just lived up to everyone’s expectation of him. 

He often found himself daydreaming about what he would do if he had his seidr. Perhaps if he had full control of his magic he wouldn’t even bother trying to escape, he would probably just kill himself, for good this time, he had nothing to live for now. 

However in the cell, he had extremely limited control of said magic, the only thing he could do was cast simple illusions for privacy. 

In the past year, he had gotten so used to the feeling of unrelenting pain that he just felt numb without it. He had taken to punching the walls of his cell until his knuckles bled or seeing if he could give himself ice burn with his Jotun magic just to feel something again.

He did that while his illusionary self stalked smugly around the cell, poking fun at the guards or lounging comfortably in the furniture he had been provided with.

_‘Ah, feels like home’_ Loki thought bitterly.

Right now he was staring out of his cell considering the intricate weavings of magic that kept him trapped in his little cage. He truly was Asgard’s disappointment, even petty thieves looked down on him now. 

Then he felt Frigga’s presence, the familiar, calming, feel of her magic washing over him like a wave. Gritting his teeth he kept his gaze trained on Fandral and Volstagg who were bringing in a group of prisoners, he flinched as one of the inmates walked past, a dark magic emanating from him. 

“Odin continues to bring me new friends. How thoughtful.” Loki said flatly.

He heard Frigga tut at him under her breath, “The books I sent, do they not interest you?” she even had the gall to sound slightly hurt at the sight of stacks of seemingly untouched books. Loki had in fact read a couple of them, they _were_ interesting reads, Frigga knew him well but he would never admit that.

Slowly Loki turned around to face her, “Is that how I’m to spend eternity? Reading?” 

“I've done everything in my power to make you comfortable, Loki.” 

“Have you? Does Odin share your concern? Does Thor? It must be so _inconvenient_ , them asking after me day and night.” Loki snarked

“You know full well it was your actions that brought you here.” She was dodging the question, as always. 

Loki involuntarily raised his voice slightly, though still trying his best not to become hysterical, “My actions? I was merely giving truth to the lie that I had been fed my entire life, that I was born to be a king.”

She flinched slightly at that but held her resolve, “A king? A true king admits his faults, what of the lives you took on earth?” 

Loki scoffed, “A mere handful compared to the number that Odin has taken himself.”

He could see it in her eyes, see that she knew all too well, that she did not condone what Odin had done and yet she would defend the Allfather until the last breath had left her body.   
“Your father…” 

“He is not my father” Loki roared, Frigga waited a couple of seconds until she dared say anything else. 

“Darling, I know, I know, I will never stop blaming myself for what happened. We should have told you but…” her voice cracked and what she said next was barely a whisper, “I was just so afraid of losing you. After what happened with… never mind” 

“More secrets, still?! I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything else, and you all call me the untrustworthy one!” Loki said, bitterness prevalent in every word. 

“There are so many things I wish I could tell you, but the magic of Asgard prevents it.”

“You mean the magic of Odin prevents it” the laugh that followed was sharp and devoid of happiness. Frigga looked down uncomfortably, finally, she met his eyes again. 

“Oh Loki, he is still your father…” Frigga started but Loki cut her off with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“No. He is a bitter old man who wants me dead”

Frigga looked as if she wanted to say something but he didn’t let her. 

“I know I have faults, I know I have made mistakes that I could never hope to repent for. I know I am, by every definition, evil, I know what everyone thinks of me but it isn’t as if anyone had any other expectation for me anyway. I know all this about myself and yet the man I used to call father...” Loki spat out the word, “is a thousand times worse than me, so do not insult me by asking that I call him by that title again”

“Then am I not your mother?” Frigga asked, her stare pierced him and he felt it in his soul. The silence between them seemed to stretch out for an eternity as Loki faltered. 

Finally, he managed to choke out two words, “you’re not.” 

Frigga smiled softly, but there were tears in her eyes, “Always so perceptive about everyone but yourself.” she shook her head a little and reached out to him with her hands, emotion welling up in his throat, Loki reached out to her only to realise she was not really there. 

“Do you really fear me that much, you won’t even come and see me in person?” 

“I could never fear you Loki, your-” she cleared her throat, “Odin has forbidden it, I’m afraid that he would harm you if I broke that rule” 

“Just go Frigga,” Loki said and turned away, he heard a small sigh before he felt her magic drift away. 

Half-heartedly he re-applied his illusion spell and slumped down on his cot. As he attempted to sleep he kept thinking of Stark, Loki had saved someone’s life but what good did that do him now? 

—

Something bad had happened, Loki could feel it deep in his seidr. His magic was screaming, crying, inconsolable, and every fibre of his being was on edge because of it. 

Ten more guards ran past him and with a sinking feeling he realised that whatever was going on probably had something to do with the prison escape that had happened earlier. Still feeling bitter about, well, everything, Loki had advised the escapees on the best route to take.

He was slowly starting to regret his pettiness, but then again he hadn’t exactly helped… whoever it was… _that_ much. It was just a friendly word of advice, one inmate to another.

Letting out a small noise of frustration he started pacing backwards and forwards in his cell. Why wouldn’t anyone tell him what was going on? He deserved to know!

Unlike the others that occupied the cells around him, he actually had a reason to care about what was going on around here. It wasn’t long ago they all called him prince, too many people had forgotten that. 

He dropped his body heavily into a chair, tapping impatiently on the armrest. There was nothing else to do now but wait 

\---

Finally, a guard came, Loki immediately got up from his seat and stalked over to the man, his heart was in his throat, something terrible had happened, he could feel it. 

“What exactly is going on?” He said, trying his best to keep a veneer of calm.

“A prison escape, there were multiple casualties, the only reason you are being informed is that our dearly beloved Queen Frigga, wife of the Allfather, is one of the deceased. Crown prince Thor asked me to relay this message to you since…” 

Loki’s vision went out of focus and whatever else the man said faded into the background. After a minute Loki spoke, his voice no louder than a whisper, “Will I be allowed to attend the funeral”

“No.” Was the man’s curt reply. 

Loki hardly noticed when the guard left, he couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening, he took a couple of shaky steps back and turned towards the back wall. This couldn’t possibly be real, it was a sick joke or a mistake, she couldn’t be dead. 

Closing his eyes he lashed out with his magic, throwing everything in the cell away from him, his seidr was angry, sad, confused, as was he. It had known long before him, he realised, his magical core had reacted the moment she had left this realm of existence. 

He tried to take a couple of breaths, to calm down, but he couldn’t breathe, it was as if his throat had closed up completely. Frantically he tried to get air in his lungs, his inhalations becoming rapid and sharp, his heartbeat was racing impossibly fast and yet it seemed to miss every second beat. 

_‘Close your eyes Loki, count to ten’_ Frigga’s voice echoed in his mind, telling him what she always used to tell him when he got like this. However this time her words didn’t help because she was gone. Gone. GONE. 

Letting out an animal scream he unleashed wave after wave of magic causing everything in his cell to whirl and crash around him. He was the centre of a vortex, a tornado, the world was spinning out of control around him. Glass and stray pieces of debris crashed into him, cutting and bruising him, but he didn’t even feel the pain. He deserved everything that was coming to him. 

In the back of his mind, he realised he shouldn’t actually be able to use his magic this much in here but that didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered now. 

Frigga was dead because of him.

The last person in the universe who, for some inconceivable reason, still cared about him was dead.

His mother was dead and the last thing he had said to her was that she should leave. 

His mother was dead. 

Hot tears were streaming down his face and slowly the torrential wave of magic he was releasing stopped. Broken pieces of his world clattered to the ground around him. They wouldn’t even allow him to her funeral, they wouldn’t allow him the mercy of being able to say goodbye. 

Looking down at the ground he saw a small folded piece of paper at his feet, he could see one word written on the side facing him. “Loki”. He picked it up with shaking hands as his rage melted into despair, it was Frigga’s handwriting. Slowly he raised the folded letter up to his mouth and kissed it softly. Then he tucked it into his breast pocket vowing never to let it leave his person. He couldn’t read it, not now, he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to. He sank down to his knees, his body shaking with silent sobs. He wasn’t sure how much time passed until he stopped shaking but eventually he did, and then he just felt empty. 

Behind him, he heard the small servants door open and a set of footsteps cautiously enter. 

He hadn’t got the energy to care about the intrusion, he kept his head firmly turned away from whoever it was that had entered his cell.

“If it’s food just leave it on the…” Loki started before realising that he had completely destroyed every piece of furniture in the room, “never mind, just put it anywhere”

A small female voice started to cautiously speak, “Oh, I’m sorry to interrupt you prince Loki, but I think I might be able to help you” 

Slowly Loki stood up and looked at the young aesir servant girl who had talked to him. She had short wavy black hair, an unusual style for aesir women, and bright violet eyes. She looked nervous, with good reason, but he was too drained to be angry at her and besides, she called him prince, it had been a while since anyone had.

He silently motioned for her to continue and then his eyes widened when her pale skin melted away, blue taking its place.

“You see, I think we have a couple of things in common…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short summary:
> 
> Loki is imprisoned on Asgard, dealing with the repercussions of his actions and of being back where he grew up. He speaks and argues with Frigga. 
> 
> Later he is informed that Frigga was killed and grieves, quite destructively. He also finds a letter from Frigga but decides he can't deal with opening it.
> 
> Finally, a young serving girl enters his cell, she reveals herself to be a Jotun (perhaps the same jotun girl from earlier, hint hint)
> 
> There is a lot of internal stuff going on in this chapter and not so much plot-wise, sorry but I thought it was important, idk. 
> 
> \---
> 
> I have written out Frigga's entire letter to Loki and I can't wait to share it, but we will all have to wait until Loki is ready...


	11. Lost Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had planned to get further in the story in this chapter, but that's just not what ended up happening. It do be like that sometimes. The next chapter will have Tony in it again I promise.

—Loki—

Snapping himself out of his shock, Loki grabbed the Jotun girl by the neck and pushed her up against the wall. Her eyes widened and she gave an indignant squawk.

“A Jotun, I should have guessed your filthy race was behind all of this. Was it you that infiltrated Asgard, did you murder Frigga as revenge? Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you where you stand” Loki hissed, his entire body trembling with rage. 

They must have wanted revenge for Asgard’s attack on their planet, they had killed Frigga and now they had come to kill him too, well, he wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

“Wait” she rasped out, “I think you’ve misunderstood something…”

Loki narrowed his eyes and squeezed tighter around the girl's neck. 

Nevertheless she managed to choke out a couple of words, “I… didn’t...kill…your…mother” 

At that Loki loosened his grip slightly, he didn’t want to kill her right away, he needed as much information as possible first. The girl swallowed heavily and looked up at him with frightened eyes. 

“Listen, I’m not sure what happened here but it had nothing to do with me. I just needed to find you.” 

“And why, exactly, did you need to find me?” Loki asked, his voice low and dangerous.

“Oh. Um, that’s actually quite a complicated question… I think we might be connected in some way? Do you mind if we sit down, because if I’m going to have to explain everything because it might take a while? Or you could just, you know, take your hands off my neck, it’s quite uncomfortable. No? Ok well, that’s just rude…”

Loki tuned out her incessant babbling for a moment as he considered the jotun. If this girl was an assassin she was clearly an amateur, she wasn’t strong, she didn’t seem to have any sort of plan whatsoever and she seemed so young. 

“You really don’t have anything to do with this, do you?” Loki said with dawning realization, then he shook his head slowly and let go of her. The girl took a couple of shuddering breaths and rubbed at her neck while glaring at Loki. 

“No, I don’t. I really am sorry for your loss, and I probably should have picked a better time for this…” 

“But what is a Jotun doing in Asgard, if not seeking revenge?” 

“I could probably ask you the same thing”

Loki growled and took a menacing step towards her, she immediately flailed her hands out in front of her, “A joke ok, it was a joke! Please don’t kill me” she said hurriedly in a very high-pitched voice. Loki rubbed his temples, nothing made sense right now, he wondered if this odd adolescent Jotun girl was just a figment of his imagination. Something his grieving broken mind had created.

“I’m not going to ask you another time, who are you, and what are you doing here?” Loki said through gritted teeth. He had no patience for the games or tricks he usually enjoyed, now he just felt tired and wanted to be alone. 

The girl cleared her throat a little, “I know this is going to sound quite far-fetched, but, um, don’t dismiss it straight away ok” 

“Just get on with it.” 

“So, um, about a year ago I woke up, there was a huge earthquake that made everything shake around me, I found out afterward that was your fault…” Loki glared at her so she hurriedly continued, “I was in a cave on Jotunheim, It looked like it maybe used to be a temple or something. I had no memory of anything before I fell asleep. It was like I had been frozen or under some sort of stasis charm, of course at the time I had no idea what anything was, my mind was completely blank, I knew nothing. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot and a stasis charm seems like the most probable thing unless someone messed with my mind.”

“Talk faster, please, my headache is getting a headache…” Loki was heavily considering just silencing this girl with his magic and waiting for a guard to come to pick her up, then again, it wouldn’t look good for him to be found with a Jotun in his cell.

“Right, yes, I also had this power but I didn’t comprehend it yet, I could just feel it humming under my skin. I was completely helpless, I probably would just have sat there trapped for a few days and then died, but then these sparks of green magic or something came towards me…” 

Loki’s eyes widened with recognition and he suddenly remembered the cry for help he had felt as he was falling, had he sent his magical knowledge to a _jotun?_ Was it really that impossible for him to do anything right? 

“...and it sort of gave me a hug? I guess? It hurt a little at first, prickling on my skin, and then it gave me a headache. It was like I was learning a thousand things at once, I learned about you and I learned about magic and all speak and…”

“You say you were in an ice cave?”

“Yes,” She said uncertainly. 

“Under some sort of stasis charm?”

“Well I don’t know but I would assume, you usually start your life as a baby right? and I’m clearly not…” 

But Loki wasn’t listening, his mind whirring a mile a minute. Stasis charms were dangerous, they slowed the body down, made it age slower, and nourished it if done right but they required some extremely powerful magic. The girl. She had been left in a cave on Jotunheim, Odin had found _him_ in a cave on…

Loki stared her in the eyes, and chuckled, his train of thought was preposterous, no way, _that_ was impossible...

“... and I think we might be… related or something because I know you’re Jotun too right? Also my magic is similar to yours, and why else would you help me...”

“What did you say?” Loki snapped.

“That we might be related” She replied slowly. 

“No. That- that’s not even possible, the fact that you’re even asking proves that you couldn’t possibly be related to me!” Loki took a deep breath and calmed down a little, usually, he had more control over himself. He continued speaking in a softer but not kinder tone, “Jotunheim is large, and beneath the surface, there are thousands of caves, crevices, and structures of ice. The chances of us somehow being connected because of that common denominator are infinitesimal.”

“I-“ The girl started to speak but seemed unsure of how to continue, she looked slightly untethered, lost. “For this past year, I've just been looking for _you_. The first thing that happened when I woke up was that you saved me so I- well I hoped that you could maybe explain what happened, _why_ I was there and _why_ you chose to save me. But I can see now that you’re just as confused as I am…” She sighed heavily and when she continued to speak her voice was flat, “Could you at least look into my memories. I’m pretty sure that was one of the prices of information I got… um, something like, ‘you can use seidr to see memories subconsciously remembered, yet out of reach of the individual’ right? Isn’t that a thing?”

“As far as I can tell I have already helped you enough, I’ve saved your life, twice.”

“Twice?”

“I saved you from the cave, and I didn’t kill you when you entered my cell” Loki bared his teeth in a vicious smile, but even he could feel it was more forced than usual.

“Right” she shuddered slightly, “Please… I’ll leave you alone forever after that, you would never need to see me again, I just” her voice broke, “I need to know who I am”

Maybe it was the fact that the only other Jotuns he had met had been trying to kill him, or he was trying to kill them. Maybe it was the look in the girl’s eyes, one that reminded him of an expression he himself had worn many times. 

Or maybe it was just l’appel du vide, a dangerous curiosity, a whisper of _what if..._

Loki gave a large sigh and then grabbed the girl’s head lowering himself down slightly so that his eyes became level with hers. 

“I’m exhausted and grieving so if this is the only thing that will make you shut up and leave, I guess I must.”

She started to thank him but he stopped her.

“I have to warn you, I have never been particularly gifted at mind magic, so for this to work you must open up your mind completely and not hold anything back. Use your own seidr the maintain the connection, if you can”

Loki almost rolled his eyes at himself for saying that, _apparently_ he was just telling potential enemies his weaknesses now, if he wasn’t careful he would turn into Thor. Blindly trusting and brash. 

But the girl didn’t comment, she just gulped and continued staring at him. 

Slowly he began to trace a sigil on his forehead, then on hers, and felt the prickling of his magic begin to form. However his seidr was tired, he had used a lot today already and needed rest. He was also sure that this was a mistake, that he should just find some way to get the girl out of his cell and be done with it. He was about to break the connection when he felt a pull. He opened his eyes in surprise to see the girl’s face scrunched up in concentration, her own purple seidr stretching out in the space between them. 

If she was indeed telling the truth about her beginnings then with actual practice she could be great. Loki closed his eyes again, feeling rejuvenated and balanced by the way her magic meshed with his. Slowly he sifted through her memories, he realised that the majority of them were just from this past year and before that there was just a blank haze, apparently, she had been telling the truth about that. He went back to where the haze began, there was a small cluster of memories there, he clutched onto one and tried to focus in on it.

The nagging feeling of doubt was back but before he could consider if he was making a grave mistake he plunged into darkness. 

—

He opened his eyes in the girl’s infant body staring up at a muscular Jotun woman, he could feel something moving next to him but a blanket was wrapped so tightly around him that he couldn’t move his head to look at whatever it was. 

The woman was running, and as she ran she adjusted her hold on the bundle he was in, and he saw none other than Laufy king of Jotunheim running beside them.

He felt bile rising in his throat as he recognized the giant but couldn’t tell if it was part of the memory or not. He heard a little cry and realised there was another infant right next to him. 

He had a sinking feeling right in the pit of his stomach, if Laufey was there, and there was a second child, then it was possible that the girl’s instincts were true. However Loki could not accept, whatever that meant, as truth without more proof than that. 

“The Allfather. He’s close, I can feel his magical presence sire, we must move with haste, however, the children are getting upset, I must feed them soon” The woman said with thinly disguised panic.

“Leave the bastards” Laufey hissed, “look at them, little runts. They’ll only slow us down” 

The Jotun woman, large and imposing as she was, began to cry, “but sire, surely we should…”

Lauefy silenced her with a slap, “know your place woman, I never should have bedded a witch, more trouble than it’s worth, leave them here or die alongside them.”

Shakily the woman lowered them to the ground, two infants, side by side. 

“Mummy is going to freeze you for a little while, ok? You first little Ylva” she said in a low shaky voice as she started to weave what Loki recognised as the stasis charm in the air above the girl.

“Hurry up” came Laufey’s cold, unfeeling voice, making the woman jump. 

The woman gasped her eyes darting back and forth between the two babes, “I don’t have time to do this for both of you, I- i have to go, but i’ll be back I promise, mummy will be back. I’m sorry.” 

Quickly the Jotuns left and for a couple of minutes there was nothing but silence and darkness, Loki was just about to leave the memory but stopped himself. Someone else entered the cave, the final confirmation Loki needed to prove that he was the other child in the bundle had been him. Odin walked through the cave and ended up just outside of his line of sight, an Asgardian soldier followed closely behind him. 

Loki heard the footsteps stop, anger and fear churning in the pit of his stomach he stayed in the memory although his hold on it was slipping. 

“They are kin of Laufey, look at the markings on their skin” Came Odin’s low rumbling voice that seemed to echo around the chamber.

“Bastards no doubt, if they have been left here.” 

“While that may be true, we could still have use of them”

“As a bargaining chip sire?”

“Something like that… Check if they still breathe”

The soldier checked both of the infants before returning to Odin's side.

“One of them seems to be dead, the one that survived is a boy, could that be useful sire?”

“Yes… indeed, I will take him. However, no one must know about this”

“Of course sire, you have my word that…” and then came the unmistakable sound of a sword being unsheathed, “...sire?”

A gasp, a gurgle, a body hitting the ground. 

Odin stepped over to the two infants, sword still bloody, his eyes only rested on the girl he believed to be dead for a moment before his focus went elsewhere, he was now staring intently at the other child. Odin raised his hand, his eyes flashing gold as incantations slipped from this tongue, Loki could do nothing but stare at his infant self as the blue of his skin melted away.

Then Odin's hands picked him up and out of his line of sight. Loki heard once last thing from the king’s mouth, “Nobody will know, not even you, I shall call you Loki, and from now on you will be my son.” And then the memory slipped through his fingers like grains of sand.

—

Loki opened his eyes with a gasp and immediately pulled his hands back from the girl’s head as if he had been burned. He stared at her in disbelief and felt the hot prickle of tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes. Slowly the girl opened her eyes and looked at him, “what?” she said, “what did you see?”

“You messed with the memory, you must have done.” his voice was shaky and unsure, he felt like a child again, where was his veneer of calmness when he needed it most? 

She opened her mouth but Loki spoke first. 

“Choose your next words wisely, I can sense lies if I so desire” he warned and let his eyes flash green. 

“I didn’t mess with the memory ok? I wouldn’t even know how to do that, I just opened up my mind as you said.” She said, voice loud and defensive. 

She wasn’t lying.

_She wasn’t lying._

For the second time today, the world was spinning out of control around him. He tried to stand up but his legs gave way and he slumped back down onto the floor of his cell which was now littered with shards of glass. He didn’t even feel them cut into his skill, just saw blood start to leak out of his skin. It didn’t make sense, he had a sister, a Jotun sister. Who apparently had been left under a stasis charm for the last 1500 years. 

He wondered if his life would have been different if Odin had realised that the girl hadn’t been dead. Would Odin have taken both and raised them together? He wondered if it would have hurt less when the truth had been revealed, or if the repercussions would have been twice as destructive. If having someone truly like him would have been a comfort or a challenge. 

But right now the girl sitting in front of him was nothing more than a stranger. 

“What did you see?” She asked, voice soft and full of worry. Loki wondered _why_ she worried about him, they had only just met. 

“Your name is Ylva. You are the bastard daughter of Laufey and a frost witch. During the war between Asgard and Jotunheim, you were abandoned alongside your twin brother. Your mother placed a stasis charm on you but never came back for you.” 

The girl, Ylva, looked down and then looked up at Loki in confusion, however, as she spoke, realisation slowly dawned on her face, “...but I was the only one in the cave when I woke up.”

“I was taken by Odin, and raised as an Aesir, considering that I gave you my memories you should know the story by now,” Loki said bitterly.

“So, you are my brother, I have a brother!”

“It doesn’t matter, don’t you see? I’m stuck here for eternity, and you, well if anyone finds out we are blood-related you will most likely be executed. You should just leave.” Loki drew his knees up to his chest and leaned his head on them, he was tired, so impossibly tired. 

“No. I don’t think I will” Ylva’s voice rang loud, clear, and without hesitation, Loki slowly raised his head, giving her a withering glare. 

But she didn’t react, instead, she wove a pattern in the air with her hands and created an image, a tiny purple wolf that ran across the ground leaving violet sparks in its wake. Then she created another creature, an eagle, and set it to fly through the air around them. Loki watched them, eyes following them with childlike wonder as they almost hypnotically danced around the room. He didn’t even notice when his own hands started to move, creating first a tiny green horse and then a snake who joined the other animals.

When he was small and just starting to learn to control his seidr, he and Frigga had done the exact same thing together, they had created animals and played. Frigga would always leave her blue dove, flitting around his room at night when he had trouble sleeping. 

“See bro, no need to be big and scary _all_ the time” Ylva joked, but her voice was soft and her gaze calculating. 

He was so exhausted and confused and he couldn’t take it anymore so he just laughed and laughed and laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed it, tell me what you think of Ylva, do you like her, do you hate her? Sorry, I can't do very much if it's the latter, she is going to be in the rest of the story. I want someone who can help Loki heal besides just Tony.
> 
> See you all next week!


	12. Jeg har bare en ufattelig lyst til at gøre alle fortræd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a while, I'm so sorry, I've just had a lot going on these last couple of weeks...
> 
> Enjoy the chapter!

\---Loki---

Loki was having nightmares every night, horrible flashes of his torture and his brain’s twisted imagining of Frigga’s death left him waking up in cold sweats. He grasped control wherever he could, however in his broken cell there wasn’t much to control. He had cuts on his hands and feet that his body should have healed in a matter of hours at most, but he kept them open and fresh with his magic, a reminder of his failure. Ylva constantly tried to clean up his cell, she didn't understand, his cell was his chaos, he needed chaos. So whenever she left he would destroy everything once again. 

Another thing to control, another thing to keep him sane. 

During the next week, Ylva regularly returned to his cell bringing food and information on what was going on outside his cage. He was still wary of her, but if she tried anything he would be able to defend himself. He didn’t mind the company either, she certainly distracted him from his own thoughts and besides, he needed all the information he could get about what happened to Frigga.

_You're making excuses for your own weaknesses, why don’t you just admit that you're a scared useless child who doesn’t want to be alone…._

The rational part of his brain knew that it was neither Odin nor the Other speaking to him, the voices mere echos of his torture.

Still, another part of him always wanted to run and cower whenever the poisonous whispers filled his mind.

He sighed, rubbing his eyes and turned his attention back to the girl who somehow was his sister. She was sitting with him in his cell, rambling incessantly about her year on Midgard, Loki was only half paying attention. However the way her face lit up as she spun her tale filled him with melancholy. He was like that once, a _very_ long time ago. Loki considered Ylva, she obviously no longer looked like a Jotun, the only peculiar thing about her was her piercing purple eyes. He had already told her that if anyone asked about them she should tell them her mother was from Vanaheim. 

Her disguise was impressive, for a beginner, but would never trick anyone proficient in magic. With a small flick of his wrist, Loki caused a pile of books on the other side of the room to topple. Ylva immediately turned to look at it in dismay, “I had just stacked those…” she muttered. When her back was turned he hastily improved the illusion she had placed on herself, before slumping back against the wall. 

“Did you do that? Oh. Are you alright? Should I get you anything?” 

“I neither want nor need your pity” Loki grumbled, “I’m fine” 

Ylva sighed heavily, “it’s ok not to be fine, nobody would be ‘fine’ in your position. You’re literally my only family member, so just tell me what I can do to help” 

“I would hardly call us family, you showed up and then wouldn’t leave”

“Um correction, I have been coming back and forth bringing you tea in more ways than one, you’re welcome by the way... Also, we _are_ , kinda, family.”

“Have you considered that my only problem right now is you not letting me rest?”

“You and I both know that’s not true, since when does the great Loki dislike being well informed?” 

Loki gave her a withering glare, the girl just rolled her eyes. 

“Now that you’re actually paying attention to me, I do actually have something important to tell you.” Ylva’s voice was suddenly serious, “tomorrow your-“ she cleared her throat, “Thor will come and visit you”

“What does he need from me?” 

“How did you know he wanted something…”

“Why else would he come to me? He wasn’t even the one to tell me of our… of Frigga’s death. His Midgardian bedmate’s feelings must be much more important than mine”

“I’m sure he’s worried… he…”

“Worried?” Loki barked out a laugh, “he’s worried about me I’m sure, but it’s less about how I’m doing and more about what I could do. I’m a monster in more ways than one.

“Well, I’m a monster then too right? Blue skin and all.” Ylva said with a small smile, Loki waved his hand at her dismissively.

“My point is that he only ever remembers my existence when he needs something and I was the fool that always helped him. So please, tell me what it is he wants.” 

“Right.” Ylva cleared her throat awkwardly, “I was waiting on Thor and he was riled up. Like I told you, the Midgardian lady, Jane, is dying because of the Aether. The healers say she only has a couple of weeks left. Thor was talking to his companions, he’s worried about her, obviously, but also he thinks that the dark elves will attack Asgard again and destroy it completely. I’ve got to say, it doesn’t exactly look good up there right now so I don’t blame him”

Loki nodded slowly and then started talking almost just to himself, “I’ll take them to Svartalfheim, there’s a rift open to the world tree not far from here that anyone can access, magical being or not. Thor needn’t know I can travel the world tree in places without rifts.”

“You’re going to help him?!” 

“Yes I-“ Loki paused, considering, he knew something was odd about what Ylva was telling him, “The palace has hundreds of serving staff, why would they send you to feed me _and_ to wait on Thor?”

Ylva started nervously tapping her hands against her legs, suddenly she wouldn’t look him in the eye, “I may have… asked them very nicely if I could bring food to the prince” she muttered.

“What do you mean ask-“ Loki stopped mid-sentence and stared at Ylva, “don’t tell me you… influenced them?!”

“Well, I…”

“That’s powerful sorcery and mind manipulation, how did you even? Do you know how dangerous that is, an inexperienced mage like you? What if you got caught?”

“Then I would lie, say I got lost or something, I don’t think it would be a big deal”

“You forget that your capture would affect me too. Asgard’s interrogation techniques are not exactly… pleasant… You would have snapped and told them about our little arrangement eventually. Where would I be then?! Frigga isn’t here to defend me anymore, I’m surprised that they haven’t killed me already”

“Illusions are difficult ok! I wasn’t sure if I would be able to keep mine and do another at the same time. Aside from just pure bursts of power, mind magic is the only thing I’ve really been able to do well. I’ve messed up teleportation every time I tried to do it, I always ended up in the wrong place.” Ylva took a deep breath, “All mind magic takes is me lacing my words with seidr and giving them a little push. I used it on Midgard too, when I was trying to find you. I was even able to talk to Tony Stark, he was looking for you too you know, I have no idea why. I felt bad about doing it every time but it was the only way, I had to find out who you were… I- I mean. Please don’t be mad, I really don’t like Asgard, I just want to leave and learn more about how to control my magic.” 

Loki blinked slowly, trying to process the onslaught of information that had spewed from the young girl’s mouth. If what she was saying was true then she had the potential to become extremely powerful. With the right person shaping her, her power might one day be able to rival his own. The prospect terrified him and thrilled him all at once. Do the right thing and he could have a powerful ally, do the wrong thing and he could have a formidable foe. 

Loki kept his face carefully blank as he came to a decision.

“Thor is going to come and ask me for aid, wherever he wants me to take him, I will take you with me. You will help me trick him and escape. Afterwards, if you so wish, I could train you in magecraft, we share the same blood so I suspect our magical potential to be similar.”

Ylva’s eyes widened and a smile started to spread on your face. 

“Don’t think that means I will hesitate to leave you if you put me in unnecessary danger. You will have to be resourceful and strong otherwise you will be a useless apprentice” 

“Sir yes sir” Ylva chucked but quickly stopped as she saw Loki’s exasperated expression, “I mean, of course, thank you so much.” 

Loki rolled his eyes, “now leave before I regret this…” 

“What about Thor?” 

“Even Thor is smart enough to know that he needs time to plan this sort of thing, he will only leave in a couple of days so we have time, come back tomorrow and we can discuss the right course of action then.” 

Loki thought Ylva left soon after but not before he had placed a small charm on her that would make it difficult for people who weren’t actively looking for her to see her. Of course, posing as a serving girl made the chance of her being noticed unlikely anyway, however, it never hurt to be careful. 

Using seidr in here was draining, as always, but the fact that he could reach his power in his supposedly magic-proof cell gave him a small flicker of hope.

As he lay facing the wall he thought about Ylva, whether or not trusting her was a good idea. It would probably end up being a bad arrangement for them both, Loki did not help people, he let them down, but for now, they needed each other. They would both have to make do. 

—

Loki felt empty today, he leant against the wall and relished in what little feeling the open wounds on his body gave him, he deserved the pain.

He was spiralling, falling deeper and deeper into memories of torture and pain. He craved revenge on The Other, on the Mad Titan, for what they had done to him. 

_I will get out of here and kill them, I’ll get out of here and kill them, i’llgetoutofhereandkillthem_

He pulled his hands through his tangled hair, his hair curled naturally, he hated it, but couldn’t be bothered to spell it straight. 

Suddenly Ylva came bursting into his cell. “He's coming, right now, he’s going to leave right now!”

Loki just stared at her, his brain struggling to catch up with what she was saying. 

Ylva ran her eyes over him and winced slightly, “Fuck, um ok, don’t worry I’ve got this… I think…” 

Balling her hands into fists she unleashed a stream purple of magic covering herself and the cell. The cell now looked as bare, boring and unbroken as it had before Frigga’s death. Loki glanced up at Ylva who now looked like him, she quickly gave him a thumbs up. 

“If you’re going to attempt to be me you shouldn’t do that,” he said tiredly, he knew this was a bad idea but he couldn’t find it in him to care.

“Right. Yes.” his own voice echoed back at him before Ylva turned to face the rapidly approaching Thor.

Ylva clasped her hands behind her back and leaned forward, Loki couldn’t see her face, hopefully, she didn’t look too frightened. “Thor. After all this time and now you come to visit me. Why? Have you come to gloat? To mock?”

Thor frowned slightly before replying, “Loki, enough. No more illusions.” 

Ah well, it was bound to happen, Ylva’s spell was good but most people who knew of magic would be able to see through it. Especially since it was focused on not only herself but the whole room. Ylva had frozen slightly, “Leave it,” Loki said softly, “it's ok”. Ylva glanced briefly back at him, then she darted behind the overturned cot before letting the illusion drop. 

Loki hated the way Thor looked at him, he just wanted to leave the wretched cell and be left alone. “Now you see me, brother.” Loki sighed, he was so tired, so relentlessly tired. It took all of his strength to stop his voice from cracking in emotion when he asked his question, “did she suffer?”

“I did not come here to share our grief” Thor answered coldly, “Instead I offer you the chance of a far richer sacrament.”

Loki tilted his head slightly, “go on”

“I know you seek vengeance as much as I do. You help me escape Asgard and I will grant it to you. Vengeance and afterwards, this cell.”

Loki considered for a moment, of course, he already knew what Thor was planning thanks to Ylva, but he still couldn't quite believe his luck, or Thor’s stupidity. Already his mind was set in motion, cycling through possible plans that would allow him to avenge Frigga and still escape. Despite himself, he chuckled, “You must be truly desperate to come to me for help. What makes you think you can trust me?”

“I don’t, mother did”, Thor and Loki stared at each other for a moment, stuck in an impasse before Thor turned away, “But you should know that when we fought each other in the past, I did so with a glimmer of hope that my brother was still in there somewhere. That hope no longer exists to protect you. You betray me, and I will kill you.”

Thor’s words just confirmed everything Loki already knew and yet it still hurt. 

_It's your own fault Loki._

Nevertheless, Loki leant forward, a semblance of a smile on his face, “hmm, when do we start?”

“In an hour, gather your things brother” 

Loki let out a broken laugh, it echoed unnaturally around the room, in the corner of his eye he saw Ylva wince, “what things? I have nothing, _brother_.”

Some emotion passed briefly across Thor’s face but Loki chose to ignore it. “Please go, get your precious midgaurdian and then return to me, I’ll be ready,” Loki spoke again, voice slightly softer and void of any emotion. Inside he was burning to a crisp, anger and resentment fueled the flames, but the opportunity that the universe had provided was slowly suffocating the fire. A whirl of emotion spun inside him, but now the chaos felt familiar, now it gave him purpose. 

So when Thor finally walked away Loki started to smile. 

“So... what’s the plan?” Ylva asked, peeking her head out from her hiding place to check that Thor was really gone. 

Loki turned to her, “Listen carefully, we don’t have much time…”

When he was done explaining, Ylva was smiling too. 

\---

As soon as Thor released him from his cell, all of the seidr that had been repressed broke free, it simultaneously felt like he was breathing again for the first time in months, and like he had just been slapped in the face. He stumbled slightly and when he regained his balance the air around them felt charged with his magic. Sparks danced across his skin and a green mist filled the air as his body got reacquainted with the sheer amount of power it had been denied for so long. 

Thor was looking at him with a guarded expression, slowly he readjusted his grip on Mjölnir, “Loki..”

Loki just rolled his eyes and pulled the magic back into his body. For the first time since he fell, he felt powerful again. He gave Thor a teasing smile, “You aren’t scared of me, are you? Lead the way brother dear”

Loki’s world was constantly falling apart, he might as well have fun as it happened. 

\---

It was fun. Loki had almost forgotten what it felt like to be free, both physically and in his mind. Feeling drunk on magic he had teasingly transformed both himself and Thor and for a brief moment as Thor shouted at him to stop he was reminded of the simpler times of their youth. But then he saw the cold determination on Thor’s face and remembered that it could never be like that again, they would never truly be brothers again.

Of course, they never were. 

Nevertheless, Loki continued to tease and have his fun, earning him a slap in the face from Thor’s lady lover and a lot of shouting from Thor himself.

But now he had gotten them to Svartalfheim and he needed to focus, there was no more time for games and barbed comments. He would help Thor one last time and then he would leave with Ylva. 

The girl in question was concealed under a shadow walker spell and if it hadn't been for the fact that his seidr was flowing towards the place she was hidden even he would probably have a hard time pinpointing where she was or the fact that she was there at all. 

He felt a little thrill at the fact his spell had worked so well and despite her inexperience, Ylva had been able to help with it as well. 

Loki turned his focus back to Thor and the scene in front of them, they had finally agreed on a plan, Loki would pretend to betray Thor and through the ruse, gain the upper hand in the fight.

Loki saw the dark figures of the elves that murdered Frigga move across the desolate grey landscape of Svartalfheim and began to feel a familiar fire start to burn in the pit of his stomach.

Loki would have his revenge, and he would start with them.

\---

Loki stared up at the ashen sky as the pain in his lower abdomen slowly started growing in intensity. The fight was over, Thor had just left with Jane, and they both thought he was dead. Not that Thor spent a long time checking whether or not he was still alive, that stung a little but Loki hadn’t expected anything different. Wincing as he moved into a sitting position he waved a hand over the wound to stop the bleeding. It was all he could do, for now, being stabbed with a cursed blade was infuriating and painful but not necessarily deadly. Especially not if you were Loki, he just needed his supplies.

Ylva popped into existence with a smile on her face, she had turned back into her Jotun form the first chance she got, Loki had no idea why she liked that version of herself so much. 

“Alright, well they’re gone! We did it! You can remove the illusion now.” 

“I already have, see the wound is not as deep and it didn’t pierce any important organs. At least I don’t think it did. I won’t die from it in any case” 

Ylva stared at him, mouth open in shock. Finally, she found the words she was looking for after floundering a couple of seconds like a fish out of water. “Wha- Idiot! I thought we agreed the plan was to pretend you got gravely injured, not actually get gravely injured!”

“Changed my mind,” he said through gritted teeth, “this was so much more convincing”

“Are you ok? What can I do?”

“We need to leave, as fast as possible, could you take us through Yggdrasil? I don’t think I have the strength right now...”

“Well, as I said, I’m not very good at that. I mean I’ve done it before but…”

“Can you do it?” Loki said, a bit more urgently.

“I- yes” she swallowed heavily, looking nervous, “I can do it”

Ylva grabbed onto him and scrunched up her face in determination, slowly a portal started to form.

Loki closed his eyes as he felt himself be pulled through the world tree. When he felt solid ground beneath his feet again he opened his eyes to see an all too familiar room. The elation he felt at finally escaping turned into anger, he stared at Ylva who had a pleased smile on her face.

“I actually did it,” she said in wonder, “we _are_ on Midgard right?”

“What. Could have possibly possessed you. to bring me to Midgard?!” Loki hissed in a low dangerous voice. “I would have thought a blood relative of mine would have at least a shred of intellect!”

“I’m sorry ok” she hissed “I didn’t know where else to take you!” 

“Alfheim!” He half-shouted back, “or literally anywhere else!”

“Hmm that's weird, I wasn’t trying to get to Stark tower… But hey, Mr Stark seems like a nice enough a guy, I’ve met him, I’m sure he’ll help you out” 

“Are you forgetting the fact that I attacked his planet a couple of months ago!”

“Well that wasn’t actually you, though, I’m sure if you explain…”

“It was me though! It was me! It doesn’t matter how much the mind stone messed with my brain, it was still me!” He sighed when he saw her downtrodden face, “I keep forgetting how young you are… look, could you please just get us out of here before Stark realises that we’re here?”

She raised her hands and gritted her teeth, “you know technically I’m the same age as you…” 

“Technically I’m the same age as you” Loki mocked back at her, and gave a sigh of relief when he saw her magic slowly begin to form a portal. His wound was starting to bleed again and the pain was almost crippling. He couldn’t wait to just lie down somewhere. 

Suddenly someone started to speak, causing Ylva to stop her magic and Loki to spin around in shock. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt this fascinating conversation, but what the fuck are you and Smurfette doing in my tower?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be Tony's pov so look forward to that!


	13. Uninvited guests

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't forgotten about you guys I promise! *throws chapter at you*
> 
> Also, have you guys seen the new Loki trailer yet?! I am FREAKING OUT! Anyways, enjoy the chapter, and happy (insert whatever you celebrate this time of year here)

—Tony—  
Tony Stark was on his way back up to his penthouse, the elevator was taking forever. He gave a sigh and rubbed his temples in a futile attempt to quell his oncoming headache. It had been a rough couple of months, In fact, Tony Stark was quite sure he was going crazy. 

In the months following the attack on New York, he had been getting increasingly restless. He had plenty to do, of course, fixing his tower, making accommodations for the other avengers, helping rebuild NY, and working on upgrading his suits. However, it was if it wasn’t enough. 

The night after Loki and Thor had returned to Asgard with the Tesseract, he had another dream. There were no fancy illusions this time, no drowning, no fire, just an overgrown graveyard bathed in that special kind of cold grey early morning light.

Not that he had much of a chance to look around as death was immediately filling his entire field of vision. She had been seething, furious as anything, “why?” she shouted, “why would you let him go back to Asgard?”

He had taken a hasty step back, noting the black fire she was conjuring in her hands, “what was I supposed to say? Hey guys, let me keep the megalomaniac who tried to destroy our planet, a dream told me to?… I mean” 

It had clearly been the wrong thing to say.

Tony yelped when death grabbed his wrists, he felt his skin burning but no matter how much he struggled she would not let go, “You have lost valuable time Stark” she hissed, “I will get him back to you, the events that will make it happen have already been set in motion.”

“What! I don’t want him back! Find someone else to do… whatever it is you want us to do”

“Fool. This is not about what either of us wants, it is about what must be done.” She took a step back, thankfully letting go of his wrists which were now encircled with burns. She looked him up and down and pressed her lips into a very thin line, disgust written all over her face, “Goodbye Stark”

And then he had woken up, dismayed to find that the burn marks from the dream had followed him into the real world.

He had spent the next couple of weeks trying to find any and all information about Loki but it was no use, with Thor gone nobody could tell him anything he didn’t already know. 

He had also tried to track down the girl who had given him the drawing but whenever he tried to remember what exactly she looked like his memory went strangely fuzzy. Pepper couldn’t help either when Tony had asked her about the girl she just gave him a strange look.

“An intern?” She had said, “I would never just let someone I barely know into the penthouse. What are you talking about?”

In those weeks Tony had found more questions than answers. 

He had slipped one day and told Rhodey everything, about the dreams, the girl, the tattoo, Loki… Needless to say, his friend had been concerned. 

Rhodes wanted him to see a therapist, he insisted that the visions Toby had told him about were the result of trauma from the battle. “You nearly died Tony, it’s completely normal to have a reaction to something like that but you should talk to someone about it”

He found part of himself believing it, wanting to at least, nothing made sense. He would go a whole day, convincing himself that his mind was making it all up before he looked himself in the mirror and saw the mark on his chest. 

At least he hadn’t had anymore dreams since then. Maybe she truly had found someone else to save the universe. He hoped she had. Tony Stark could settle for saving the earth.

He thought back to meeting Loki for the first time. Tony had assumed that all Asgardians would be like Thor, big, imposing, and ready to jump into a fight at a moment's notice. Loki wasn’t like that.

He was good at biding his time, playing off of people's emotions, infuriating bastard. True, he had seemed a little worse for wear at the beginning, distracted almost, erratic.

Up until the very end he had been lithe and sleek with a wolfish grin and intelligence behind eyes that shone green. 

_Wait-_ had they been green? 

Tony hadn’t really paid any attention to the god’s eyes before he fell through the void, why would he? Afterwards, however, despite Loki’s hair falling in front of his face, his eyes had seemed to glow brighter than ever. Green like the magic that had saved him. 

Tony shook his head trying to expel thoughts of gods and armageddon from his mind. The elevator doors slid open and he started to step out when the panicked voice of Jarvis stopped him in his tracks. 

“Sir, there has been a security breach, shall I summon your suit?” 

“Wait, what? Why am I only just hearing about this?” Tony hissed.

“That is because it happened this very moment sir, they just appeared. They must have bypassed my sensors somehow. I would strongly advise you get off this floor and call for backup”

“Backup? How many are there?” 

“Just two sir, but…”

“Get my suit ready, I’m going to check this out,” Tony said with a dismissive wave of his hand before carefully stepping out of the elevator. He walked along the hall before stopping dead in his tracks. Standing in the middle of his living room was none other than Loki of Asgard, whispering angrily to a girl with blue skin. Tony hastily stepped out of their line of sight, “Loki Jarvis? Loki! You didn’t think to tell me the intruder was Loki!?” He whispered angrily at the ceiling.

“I refrained from sharing that particular piece of information to stop you from storming into the room. You _have_ been rather obsessed with him these past months… Shall I alert the Avengers?”

“No… not yet I need to figure out why he’s here first.”

“I was afraid you would say that”, Jarvis replied with just a hint of bitterness in his voice. 

“Ah fuck, well here goes nothing” he whispered to himself before stepping into the room once more and clearing his throat causing Loki and his companion to turn and stare at him, “sorry to interrupt this fascinating conversation but what the fuck are you and Smurfette doing in my tower?” 

—Loki—

Ah well wasn’t this just perfect, back here again, Loki was going to wring that girl’s neck…

“Stark…” he said warily, he needed to buy them some time, “I’m terribly sorry to impose, but I must say you’ve done up this place quite nicely, looks much better than last time I was here” Loki took a couple of striding steps closer to Stark and clasped his hands behind his back. Stark flinched slightly as he came closer. Good. With one of his fingers, he made a circular motion to Ylva, internally cursing his weakened state. He would have to trust her to get them out of this. 

“Cut the bullshit, what are you doing here?”  
“Perhaps I just want the drink I was promised.” Loki deadpanned, but Stark didn’t deign that with a reply.

Loki’s mind was racing, the pain from his wound clouding his thoughts. How had his plan crumbled so quickly? Thor would catch wind of his survival and then it would all be over.

“You want revenge, yes? For what happened to your planet…”

“Yes, I do want revenge, so why don’t I just kill you where you stand”

“So hasty Stark” Loki chuckled slightly, “First of all, you would not be able to slay me, many much stronger than you have attempted such a thing with no success, myself included” Tony Stark’s eyes widened at that and Loki inwardly smirked at his alarmed expression, _ah sentiment, midgaurdians had too much of it._ The man opened his mouth to speak but Loki held up a hand to stop him before continuing. “Secondly, there are beings in this universe that pose a much bigger threat than me Stark, surely an intelligent man such as yourself could have inferred such a thing'' Loki practically purred, “I may have information regarding future threats to your little planet. So, perhaps we could come to an agreement. You do something nice for me, I do something nice for you”

“Why the fuck should I believe anything you say?” Stark spat, but Loki could sense something change momentarily in the man’s expression. He could work with that.

“ _Oh Stark,_ ” he said, his voice low and patronizing, “It doesn’t matter what you believe. Danger is coming, I was just the beginning. So now the question is, will your planet be ready… or not?”

“I’m sorry if I find it difficult to believe someone who has literal myths written about how good they are at deception.” Stark replied sarcastically, “but enlighten me, what exactly is it that you want?”

Suddenly Loki’s vision started to blur, and the pain in his abdomen reared its ugly head once again, this time he wasn’t able to stop himself from wincing. The man standing in front of him simply blinked in surprise. Great, just great.

“All I want is to be able to leave with my companion without Thor being alerted to the fact that I was ever here.”

“Speaking of… Who is she?”

Loki was about to tell Stark that it was none of his business when Ylva opened her mouth, “Hi Mr Stark, I’m Ylva, Loki’s sister” Loki turned to glare at her, but she continued, “well he prefers the term ‘blood-relative’ but that sounds so boring don’t you think.” 

“ _What_ are you doing?” Loki said to her in a dangerously low voice, he should have known bringing her along was a mistake.

He turned back to look at Stark who had a perplexed expression on his face and was slowly glancing between them both.

Ylva just shrugged at him, “you have your plan, I have mine” she replied and turned back to Stark. “You probably know me better like this,” she said before she scrunched her face up in concentration and her aesir illusion started to cover her blue skin. Loki wanted to scream, this is what she was using her magic on? This! She had proved she could manipulate minds, why didn’t she make Stark forget he ever saw them and escape? Stark made a choking sound and Loki turned his head back to look at the man.

“You!” Stark spluttered, “I’ve been looking for you. You can’t just tell me shit about how you know the man I’ve been looking for literal months and then disappear? You’re _his_ brother? I- I don’t understand… Why can’t I remember...”

Loki had to admit he was as confused as Stark, he was just about to ask, when his wound made him double over in pain. He grunted and sank to the floor, his vision slowly fading to black. His head felt as if it was full of lead, and when he touched his hand to his abdomen it came back wet. His spell was supposed to have lasted longer than this… Faintly he heard Ylva shouting his name, but the cacophony of ringing in his ears was rising to a crescendo and whatever else she was saying was drowned out. 

It was all over now. He just had to pray that Stark was a better person than he and would let him slowly pass away, instead of sending him back into Odin’s clutches. 

Loki braced himself for the darkness, familiar and terrifying.

Before he lost consciousness completely, a voice whispered in his ear, _“why do you both insist on making this needlessly difficult for me?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As someone interested in the old Norse religion and who has friends that practice Norse paganism (asatro) I find it funny how much marvel has kinda butchered the mythology. Like it's not necessarily a bad thing, we got the Loki we all know and love out of it, it's just amusing to compare the two sometimes. 
> 
> I'm also unsure how much I should lend from the actual mythology in my story because clearly "mythology Loki" and "marvel Loki" are two completely different things but it would be fun to play around with a little bit. Idk.


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